Director’s Message – November, 2020
Guy Rodgers with Anne-Marie Jean CEO of CALQ at ELAN 2019 AGM.
Photo by Nasuna Stuart-Ulin
Artists are remarkably resilient people and quick to create solutions in difficult situations. That is an admirable strength in normal times. The situation we are currently confronting is totally abnormal and unpredictable. Trying to figure out too many things on your own, and in isolation, becomes exhausting and overwhelming, which is why it is important that we work through this together.
All levels of government and all of the arts funders responded to the pandemic with unprecedented urgency, making the first six months of the Covid-19 crisis, assisted by mild summer weather, bearable. As we enter a new phase, we are hearing calls of distress from artists uncertain where to turn for help, or who is eligible for new forms of assistance and under what conditions. ELAN’s Covid-19 page attempts to aggregate the most useful and up-to-date information. We invite all artists and cultural workers to contact us if you can’t find an answer, if you feel like you’ve fallen through the cracks of a program, and/or if you just feel lost. We can help dig for answers and push for solutions.
ELAN is offering a variety of information sessions and networking activities. These have been designed in response to conversations with members. Let us know if you have other needs and also keep us informed about support groups that are helping you and that others might want to join. ELAN is a community linked to many other communities. If we can’t help you directly, we may know someone else who can. It is going to be a long winter, but new ideas and experiments are happening all around us. Let’s share these resources and information so that we all weather this storm.
Guy Rodgers
Executive Director