Update on Canada Coun­cil tran­si­tion to New Fund­ing Model and upcom­ing appli­ca­tion dead­lines for media arts orga­ni­za­tions cour­tesy of IMAA/AAMI

Most media arts orga­ni­za­tions that cur­rently receive assis­tance from the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts through the pro­gram Grants to Media Arts Orga­ni­za­tions – Ini­tia­tives will be moved to one of the two fol­low­ing new pro­grams:
Sup­port­ing Artis­tic Prac­tice – Sup­port Orga­ni­za­tions (for most Production-based orga­ni­za­tions and dis­trib­u­tors)
Arts Across Canada – Arts Fes­ti­vals and Pre­sen­ters (for fes­ti­vals)

There will be no multi-year appli­ca­tion due this fall. Instead, the Multi-year cycle which began in 2014–15 will be extended for a fourth year (2017–18). The 2017–18 instal­ment of Multi-year fund­ing will be released upon approval of an interim report.

The next multi-year appli­ca­tion will be in May or June 2017 (details below). In the mean­time, here are the upcom­ing dead­lines for media arts organizations:

Grants to Media Arts Orga­ni­za­tions – Ini­tia­tives: 1 Novem­ber 2016
Project Grants to Media Arts Orga­ni­za­tions, Groups and Col­lec­tives: 1 Novem­ber 2016
Grants to Media Arts Orga­ni­za­tions – Equip­ment: 15 Novem­ber 2016

More infor­ma­tion will be pub­lished by Coun­cil in Decem­ber 2016, at which time you’ll also be able to cre­ate a pro­file on the Council’s new web portal.

The first appli­ca­tion dead­lines for the new multi-year pro­grams will be:
Sup­port­ing Artis­tic Prac­tice – Sup­port Orga­ni­za­tions: 15 May 2017
Arts Across Canada – Arts Fes­ti­vals and Pre­sen­ters: 1 June 2017

Note that although these appli­ca­tions will be sub­mit­ted part-way through the 2017–18 fis­cal year and com­pe­ti­tion results won’t be known until Decem­ber 2017, they will cover a three-year cycle begin­ning with the 2017–18 fis­cal year. This means that in addi­tion to your core fund­ing for 2017–18 which you will receive accord­ing to the same lev­els as the last three years, there is an oppor­tu­nity for a retroac­tive top-up to your 2017–18 core fund­ing, if the jury assess­ing your appli­ca­tion decides on an increase to your orga­ni­za­tion.
For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, con­tact your offi­cer at the Canada Coun­cil or go to: http://newfundingmodel.canadacouncil.ca/

ODSP Action Coali­tion, Media Arts Net­work Of Ontario, Work­man Arts, ACTRA Toronto, and Tan­gled Art + Disability

ODSP and Arts Grants Questionnaire

Are you an artist and a recip­i­ent of ODSP? We need your help!

The ODSP Action Coali­tion, Media Arts Net­work Of Ontario, Work­man Arts, ACTRA Toronto, and Tan­gled Art + Dis­abil­ity are work­ing together to gather sto­ries and expe­ri­ences of being both an artist and a recip­i­ent of ODSP.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/R3XVVNT

The Ontario Dis­abil­ity Sup­port Pro­gram (ODSP) is a social assis­tance pro­gram run by the Ontario Min­istry of Com­mu­nity and Social Ser­vices. It pro­vides income sup­port and employ­ment sup­port to peo­ple who receive it.

In order to qual­ify for ODSP your income and assets can­not be above cer­tain amounts. All pay­ments to a per­son receiv­ing ODSP are con­sid­ered income, unless they are specif­i­cally exempted by the rules gov­ern­ing ODSP.

Dif­fer­ent kinds of income for ODSP recip­i­ents are treated dif­fer­ently.  For exam­ple, employ­ment or self-employment income is par­tially exempt, mean­ing you can keep some of it but part of it is deducted from ODSP.  But you can keep 100% of gifts or money that peo­ple give you vol­un­tar­ily, up to $6000 per year.  And you can keep all income that is intended for disability-related expenses, but must get approval from the ODSP office for this.  Because there are so many dif­fer­ent rules, it is not clear how arts grants will be treated.

Some artists who receive ODSP sup­port are con­cerned that if they are awarded arts coun­cil grants their ODSP pay­ments will be reduced, or cut off com­pletely. They may also be con­cerned that they will no longer qual­ify for the health ben­e­fits they cur­rently receive. Since ODSP sup­port is not enough to cover liv­ing expenses and the costs of mak­ing art they face bar­ri­ers to advanc­ing as artists.

The ODSP Pol­icy on Canada Coun­cil of the Arts Grants and Ontario Arts Coun­cil Grants states: These grants are not specif­i­cally exempt under ODSP…The details of the spe­cific grant should be reviewed to deter­mine the nature of the grant, how it is paid and the cir­cum­stances under which the grant is pro­vided. (Direc­tive 5.1)

These reviews are con­ducted by ODSP case work­ers and indi­vid­ual recip­i­ents have had a range of experiences.

This is where you come in.

If you’re an artist and are or have been recip­i­ent of ODSP, please fill out the ques­tion­naire. The ques­tion­naire is vol­un­tary and confidential.

The infor­ma­tion we gather will help us to seek changes that would allow artists who receive ODSP to develop and thrive as professionals.

That means we could see more plays, films, books, songs, etc. cre­ated by and about peo­ple with disabilities.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/R3XVVNT

If you have any ques­tions about this ques­tion­naire, please contact:

Eliza Chan­dler, Tan­gled Art + Dis­abil­ity
647–725-5064
eliza@tangledarts.org

Pre­vi­ous con­sul­ta­tions have demon­strated the need for the media arts sec­tor to develop a set of (uniquely tai­lored to the orga­ni­za­tional struc­tures of artist-run media orga­ni­za­tions) best prac­tices, poli­cies and doc­u­ment tem­plates on human resources, gov­er­nance,  equity, and con­flict resolution.

With the sup­port from the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts (Lead­er­ship for Change pro­gram), MANO’s mem­bers worked with con­sul­tants Giselle Bas­anta, Charles C. Smith and Sheila Wilmot in order to develop such poli­cies and pro­ce­dures dur­ing the sum­mer and fall of 2015. After research, con­sul­ta­tions with work groups, the draft­ing of poli­cies and a work­shop on Medi­a­tion and Con­flict Res­o­lu­tion, the con­clu­sion of the project took place in Jan­u­ary 2016 with the pre­sen­ta­tion of the project’s poli­cies and pro­ce­dures to MANO’s mem­ber­ship at the Map­ping Medias symposium.

Guide 1 — Con­flict Resolution_0229

Guide 2 — Best Prac­tices on Equity_0229

Guide 3 — Board Governance_0229

Guide 3– Board Gov­er­nance Templates

Guide 4 — HR Bet­ter Practices_0229

Guide 4– HR Templates

These Guides are the intel­lec­tual prop­erty of MANO/RAMO and are to be used for the ben­e­fit of its mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions. All rights and priv­i­leges that adhere to these Guides are owned by MANO/ RAMO. The infor­ma­tion in these Guides is offered for infor­ma­tion pur­poses only and does not con­sti­tute legal advice. The infor­ma­tion in these Guides may be sub­ject to updates as prac­tices and applic­a­ble leg­is­la­tion change over time. Mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions should con­sult the appro­pri­ate pro­fes­sional for advice relat­ing to spe­cific issues.

Fri­day April 18 @ 5  PM
Admis­sion: $10 general/$5 mem­bers, stu­dents, seniors
Jack­man Hall - 317 Dun­das Street West, McCaul Street entrance

Speak­ing Together
 http://www.imagesfestival.com/calendar.php?event_id=1272&month=n

The obtuse and absurd sys­tem of hand signs and move­ments that make up the actions in Open Out­cry rep­re­sent a lan­guage reduced to the con­cerns of finance and econ­omy, a closed sys­tem, yet one that is per­va­sive in all facets of our lives. From here, this pro­gram pushes out­ward, to explore the notion of com­mu­ni­ca­tion through both­lin­guis­tic and non-linguistic means.

Open Out­cry
Ben Thorp Brown
USA, 2013, video, 15 MIN
A per­for­mance that cat­a­logues and inves­ti­gates the com­plexly absurd means of ges­tures that were once the pri­mary mode of com­mu­ni­ca­tion by com­modi­ties traders on the stock trad­ing floor. The per­form­ers cre­ate a kind of instruc­tional video – one call­ing out the words and describ­ing the asso­ci­ated actions while the other demon­strates those actions – high­light­ing the self con­sum­ing nature of this lan­guage that was both invented by and made obso­lete by finance capitalism.

Wow and Flut­ter
Jen­nifer Brady
Ire­land, 2013, video, 13 MIN
A por­trait of a mag­nif­i­cent bird draws on the 30-year rela­tion­ship between ani­mal cog­ni­tion sci­en­tist, Irene Pep­per­berg and the African Grey Par­rot who she trained in ele­ments of human lan­guage. The ele­gant depic­tion of the ani­mal attempts to ‘give voice’ to the crea­ture while rais­ing ques­tions about what cre­ates and what lim­its language.

one, two, many
Manon de Boer
Bel­gium, 2012, 16mm/video, 22 MIN
one, two, many strings together three per­for­mance ges­tures: a con­tin­u­ous, seven minute long flute per­for­mance, a record­ing of an off screen dis­cus­sion about the qual­i­ties of Roland Barthes’ voice, and a choir of four singers per­form­ing to a small group of peo­ple. Each seg­ment of the film artic­u­lates a dif­fer­ent posi­tion about and man­i­fes­ta­tion of the voice. Mov­ing from the closed, cir­cu­lar breath­ing of the flautist, Michael Schmid, in the first sec­tion, to the cho­rus per­form­ing for the audi­ence, de Boer’s film presents a med­i­ta­tion on speak­ing together, lis­ten­ing, and the indi­vid­ual body in rela­tion to the collective.

Peo­ple to be Resem­bling
The Otolith Group
UK, 2012, video, 21 MIN
Peo­ple to be Resem­bling was com­mis­sioned for the exhi­bi­tion ECM–A Cul­tural Archae­ol­ogy, a research-based archive project about the his­tory of the pio­neer­ing music label ECM. The video focuses on the musi­cal trio Codona, a group founded by Collin Wal­cott, Don Cherry and Nana Vas­con­ce­los in 1978. The video uses his­tor­i­cal pho­tographs, inter­views, archival footage of the musi­cians and a text cita­tion from Gertrude Stein’s “The Mak­ing of Amer­i­cans” to reflect on the junc­ture of two dif­fer­ent man­i­fes­ta­tions of polit­i­cal form in the his­tory of black music.

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY: COMMUNICATIONS AND MEMBERSHIP COORDINATOR

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Mem­ber­ship Coor­di­na­tor
$18/hour, 14 hours/week, 12 month contract

Appli­ca­tion Dead­line: Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 13, 2014

The Media Arts Net­work of Ontario/Réseau des arts medi­a­tiques de l’Ontario (MANO/RAMO) is Ontario’s only arts ser­vice orga­ni­za­tion exclu­sively ded­i­cated to fur­ther­ing the work of media arts orga­ni­za­tions and the inde­pen­dent artists they rep­re­sent. MANO/RAMO is focused on devel­op­ing respon­sive, inno­v­a­tive and proac­tive ini­tia­tives that cre­ate mean­ing­ful oppor­tu­ni­ties for media artists and organizations.

MANO/RAMO requires a highly orga­nized com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist to join the staff and work in coop­er­a­tion with mem­bers. We are look­ing for an admin­is­tra­tor with a strong under­stand­ing of the media arts to coor­di­nate com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the regional, national and inter­na­tional media arts sector.

RESPONSIBILITIES WILL INCLUDE A COMBINATION OF THE FOLLOWING:

• Coor­di­nat­ing all com­mu­ni­ca­tions with MANO/RAMO mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions
• Main­te­nance and admin­is­tra­tion of all data­bases, invoic­ing
• Prepa­ra­tion and design of monthly newslet­ters and other bul­letins
• Updat­ing MANO/RAMO’s social media accounts
• Assist­ing with the coor­di­na­tion MANO/RAMO pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment pro­grams
• Web­site main­te­nance
• Edit­ing and proof­read­ing skills

QUALIFICATIONS WILL INCLUDE A COMBINATION OF THE FOLLOWING:

• Expe­ri­ence devel­op­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion and media strate­gies for non-profits
• Expe­ri­ence work­ing in the non-profit sec­tor
• A demon­strated inter­est in the media arts
• A his­tory of com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­age­ment
• Proven edi­to­r­ial skills
• Bilin­gual­ism is an asset

This posi­tion requires the abil­ity to mul­ti­task and take on mul­ti­ple respon­si­bil­i­ties. MANO/RAMO has a very small staff, who must be ready to solve prob­lems on the fly. The ideal can­di­date will have expe­ri­ence and under­stand­ing of the media-arts / artist-run sec­tor and a strong com­mu­ni­ca­tions background.

To apply, please send your cur­ricu­lum vitae and cover let­ter (includ­ing two ref­er­ences) to jobs@mano-ramo.ca as a word or pdf attach­ment. Please indi­cate “Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Mem­ber­ship Coor­di­na­tor” in the sub­ject line.

MANO/RAMO will not accept any phone or in per­son inquires for this position.

We thank all appli­cants for their inter­est. Only those can­di­dates selected for an inter­view will be con­tacted. MANO/RAMO is an equal oppor­tu­nity employer and is com­mit­ted to diver­sity in all its forms.

DEADLINE for receipt of appli­ca­tions: Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 13, 2014.

This oppor­tu­nity with MANO/RAMO has been cre­ated with the sup­port of the Ontario Tril­lium Foundation.

CONTACT: jobs@mano-ramo.ca

MANO:RAMO Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Post­ing as pdf