Director's Message: April 2017

Thanks to Canada Council’s OLMC Market Access Fund, ELAN has two splendid new projects in development: the third edition of our US curator visits for visual artists, and a brand new project for performing artists.

Stephen Lawson is managing the 2017 Visiting Curator Series project (also known as Visual Arts Market Access, or VAMA). He has some fresh ideas about how ELAN can help Quebec artists access opportunities in the US. We invite you to respond to the call for submissions here. If you’re curious about past editions of this project, see photos and a summary of last year’s Q+A with American gallerists and curators.

The brand-new Performing Arts Market Access project is based on a strategy that ELAN developed with funding from Canada Council. June Park is coordinating skill-building workshops on grant writing, contract negotiating, tour booking, marketing and publicity for artists working in music, theatre and dance. If you are a performing artist and have ideas about skills that would increase your access to new markets, contact June at junepark@quebec-elan.org. We are also committed to delivering workshops to artists working in regions outside Montreal. To ensure that your region is included, send June an email.

Along with the workshops, Emilia Alvarez and Mariam Assaf are developing showcase and networking opportunities for performing artists. If you work in music, theatre, dance, or any other performing art, fill out the survey here to help them understand your needs.

Looking forward to creative encounters with many ELAN members during the coming months.

Guy Rodgers

Executive Director

Land Acknowledgement

ELAN is an official minority language organization within a country that recognizes two languages as official. ELAN is located in Tiohtià:ke, the original name for Montreal in Kanien’kéha, the language of the Mohawk—also known as Mooniyang, which is the Anishinaabeg name given to the city by the Algonquin. While we are based in this city, our projects have also taken place in many regions across Quebec.

We acknowledge the colonial origin of English and French in Canada, and recognize that both languages benefit from official status throughout the land. The province that we know as Quebec is an amalgamation of the traditional territories of the Innu and Inuit nations, Algonquian nations, as well as the Mohawk nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Kanien’kéha and Anishinaabemowin are but two of the original languages of this province; Atikamekw, Cree, Inuktitut, and Innu-aimun are also among the many Indigenous languages spoken across Quebec as majority languages, all well before French and English.

ELAN acknowledges the important work being done by First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples to revive the traditional languages of these territories, and their advocacy for the official status of Indigenous languages.