Good morning. My thanks to the committee for inviting me to appear today.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. In the interests of time, I will stick to my notes.
I am the director and CEO of the Ottawa Art Gallery. I have the honour of representing our municipal art gallery, but also to speak more broadly on behalf of municipal and regional galleries across Canada.
My perspective and a lot of my examples come from my local public art gallery, which is in the midst of a major expansion project, not only in the physical plant and infrastructure—we are moving from 12,000 square feet to a new building that is over 80,000 square feet—but also in undertaking growth in human resources, development, fundraising, the adoption of new technology and digital platforms, revenue generation, governance, and expanded programming.
The OAG expansion is slated to open in the fall of 2017 as a cultural legacy project for Ottawa, and many of the challenges and expectations faced by our sector, including the shifting paradigms of the 21st-century museum that are occurring, are paramount in our organization's collective mindset.
No longer just a temple of high culture, a public art gallery needs to be that third space, a cultural hub, a thought leader that can help set progressive agendas within our cities.
What is working? As Robin mentioned, the museums assistance program is one. I can really speak to the impact of this program, because we received a major MAP grant for our Alma Duncan exhibition. Not only did this grant allow us to do primary research on this little-known female artist, who was the first Canadian filmmaker with the NFB—so it was essentially a feminist recovery program—but it also allowed us to create a major publication that went along with that, and then we were able to tour that exhibition regionally. Nobody would have known about this very important artist without that essential funding from MAP.
However, as Robin mentioned, we need that grant, as well as other Canadian Heritage department grants, to be looked at, reviewed, and updated for the 21st-century museum.
As for Cultural Spaces, I can tell you that the Canada Cultural Spaces Fund is fundamental to our growth currently. At this stage, we have accessed that grant through the “specialized equipment” category, but it helps with feasibility studies and things like that. It is fundamental. No gallery considers growth without looking at the support of that grant.
We were very pleased to see that it was reinstated, and with more funds, but given the state of cultural infrastructure across Canada, the demands on this program are going to be extreme and oversubscribed. I will say that a lot of galleries have struggled with the matching portion of that particular grant.
Robin also mentioned the Canadian Conservation Institute. I can't tell you how important they have been for us, guiding us through all aspects of functional design and planning for our new museum, as well as reviewing all major milestones for our design plans. Essentially, they are making sure that when we are in our new building in a year and go back to the federal government to ask for our museum designation, we are compliant on temperature and humidity control, HVAC systems, security, etc. They have been fundamental to us. This essentially allows us to be a museum, a designated space, allowing us to take in cultural property and to share cultural property with our sister organizations.
A lot of galleries across Canada that are not in Ottawa, where CCI finds its home, can't access that program and risk not receiving their museum designation.
Some of the challenges are donor dollars, of course. I think you have talked about it a bit, but I can say from real experience with the Canada Council's acquisition fund that matching programs really are attractive to donors. We would love to see a national matching donation program that would allow us to leverage our donor dollars and stretch them even farther.
Accessibility is a long-underserved but now hot topic for museums and galleries. We need to create accessibility on numerous fronts: physical space, digital assets, retraining of staff, and accessible workplaces, which were often put into buildings that have not been built for people, as is the case of our current home, which is an old county courthouse. We need infrastructure support, but we also need capacity-building, not just to be compliant with the law but to become leaders.
Another aspect is indigenous representation. As a member of the Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization, we are very aware of the steps we need to take to ensure first nations, Inuit, and Métis people are integral to our museums and galleries, and not just at the programmatic level—because I think we're doing quite well there—but in leadership and at the governance level on board and staff. We need incentives to help us get there, but then we also need the government to have some oversight.
In terms of copyright and new digital skills, there is no doubt that the digital world and all of the changing social media platforms are forcing galleries to rethink the skill sets needed for all of their positions, not only in communications but in all aspects. This is putting pressure particularly on art galleries because, of course, we are not the sole copyright owners of the art that we display. In order to promote and engage through social media, we have some real challenges that have a direct correlation to the copyright legislation.
With regard to governance, I have the benefit of saying that the OAG board of directors is strong and reflexive and is adopting a new generative model of board governance for our gallery as we move into a period of great growth and change. However, my reality is rare, and I will say that one of the greatest pressures on not-for-profits is the schism that can occur between professional staff and boards. Therefore, we would love to see some training and some oversight from the federal government.
In my last few minutes I want to talk about the national capital context. Both Robin and I have national experience in other galleries across Canada, notably in Saskatchewan, but the national capital context is very particular, so I would like to take a moment to talk about it. I would say that our reality could be transferred to Winnipeg or Halifax, other municipalities that have national museums.
One area is staffing and competitive wages. It's extremely hard for us to attract and retain staff when we have these great national organizations. Both Robin and I have trained staff, engaged them, and have then had them leave to the National Art Gallery and the Museum of Nature. We're happy for them, but it's tough on us.
Another area is bilingualism. The OAG is the only bilingual gallery of its size, and the pressure to find and retain bilingual staff to translate all of our myriad marketing and social media communications output puts a major financial strain on our organization.
Another is marketing and expectations. Our marketing department and dollars can't compare to the nationals, but we're expected to play at the same level. Although we're nimble and responsive and can do very interesting things that national galleries can't, we're often overshadowed.
I don't want to come off as whiny by any means. I think, as Robin said, we have great relationships with our national organizations, but what we'd love to see is more initiatives like the National Arts Centre scene festival, which engages the local communities' galleries and museums, gives us some funding to do parallel programming, and then wraps us into this larger marketing piece. That's very helpful for us. We've become day two of your trip to Ottawa. You see the nationals on day one, and you come to see that local, on-the-ground element on day two.