Letter from the Executive Director - March 2023

Hello all!

Our Artist Capacity Building Clinics are well on their way and I encourage you to take a minute to see if any of them interest you, you can book time with an accountant, a lawyer, and other experts in various fields and pay 12$ for an hour of their time.

Also, please join us in welcoming Debbie Hynes from the CBC who is giving a workshop in Getting Media Attention, on March 7 (on Zoom). The workshop is designed for artists who struggle with the daunting task of writing their own press releases and pitching them to the media, and arts publicists who want to increase their skills.

Thank you to all of you who took the time to participate in our work on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the Arts. The voice of all members of our community is critical to making informed change and giving guidance and support those who are looking to improve their policies and procedures. We will be hosting an event on these issues in June and I hope many of you can attend.

Time to go shovel the driveway and say a small prayer to the gods of spring.

See you soon,

Vanessa Herrick
ELAN Executive Director

Click here to read this month’s Project News

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.