ARTS & CULTURE
TEAM 8: INFINITY
∞ AKEHA ∞ CHYNA ∞ AMANDEEP ∞ KSHAMA ∞ ELLA ∞
QUESTION
How can the City of Toronto work with local arts organizations to create more employment opportunities for artists?
THE CHALLENGE
Arts and culture sectors, already facing struggles before COVID-19, have been drastically impacted through loss of jobs, income, work spaces, venues, and performance opportunities.
The pandemic has led to unemployment levels not seen since the Great Depression. (Silver, Lord & Fox, 2020)
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/article-canadas-arts-sector-needs-transformative-action-similar-to-works/
By April 2020, the arts and culture sector, which accounts for nearly 3% of the GDP (greater than agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting; accommodation and food services; and utilities) had lost 85,000 jobs.
The OAC compiled a report noting revenue losses of $128 million for surveyed arts organizations as of May 1, 2020. Total OAC grants are 51.9 million, which does not fill that gap.
https://www.arts.on.ca/research-impact/research-publications/early-covid-19-impacts-on-oac-funded-arts-organizations-survey-findings
THE CHALLENGE
Even with current arts funding in Toronto, and even before COVID-19, the median artist income was $30,000 and the median arts worker income was $45,000.
80% of artists and arts workers in Toronto believe they cannot make a living wage
in our city.
The challenge
is that it is restrictively expensive to be an artist living & working in Toronto.
BENEFITS OF ARTS & CULTURE
https://torontoartscouncil.org/TAC/media/tac/Advocacy/Toronto-Arts-Facts.pdf
of Torontonians believe that the
arts make Toronto a better place to live.
89%
YET...
Half of our artists make under $30K per year.
YET...
Nearly 1 in 5
artists have been reno-victed.
YET...
45% of artists
have jobs outside
of the arts to earn
a living.
YET...
IMPACT
Averaging 51.4 hours a week, artists are overworked and underpaid, with 9/10 making financial sacrifices for their jobs.
ARTIST STATEMENTS
“We received a Toronto Arts Council project grant as a collective, but one of the collective’s co-founders is currently living out of their car. The other has stepped down in favour of a more lucrative for-profit opportunity.”
ARTIST STATEMENTS
“I don’t address health concerns because I can’t afford them–dental, vision, body maintenance…”
ARTIST STATEMENTS
“Mental health of artists is ignored. Mental health resources are needed. Current mental health options are unaffordable for artists.”
Nearly 3/4 of artists & arts workers have thought about leaving Toronto.
EFFECTS
“My partner and I plan to leave soon due to the high
cost of living and mental stress of living here.”
STATEMENT
This relates to challenges such as housing, jobs, and expanding wealth inequities. It also relates to systemic racism and marginalization of communities. 48% of artists identify as belonging to at least one equity-seeking community.
CONNECTION TO
OTHER CHALLENGES
All of these aforementioned crises, alongside our climate crisis, are linked to capitalism.
“Everything is connected. The planet and its atmosphere are the material base on which all other human activity rests. Today, capitalism drives most of that activity. At every turn, carbon emissions are entangled with the drive for profit and filtered through the lived realities of race, class, gender, and place.”
CONNECTION TO
OTHER CHALLENGES
A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal, 2019.
Canadian billionaires have made $78 billion while “5.5 million Canadian workers lost their jobs or had more than half of their hours cut at the pandemic’s peak”
“Such extreme inequality is not only outrageous in itself, it also leads to worse overall health and social outcomes and puts a drag on economic growth”.
THE NUMBERS
THE NUMBERS
There are wide-ranging solutions that have and continue to be put into place, as identified through historic and global analysis.
SOLUTIONS
1935 - Faced with the Great Depression, FDR launched ‘The New Deal’, a sweeping set of legislation and social supports including the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
THE NEW DEAL
www.makeartswork.ca
www.makeartswork.ca
OPTIONAL VIEWING
Link to view: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aEbVmbNLKrsldv4wEjPA9P4omBL9h-oq/view?usp=sharing
PROPOSING A CANADIAN WPA
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/article-canadas-arts-sector-needs-transformative-action-similar-to-works/
“Picture it:
As Silver, Lord & Fox write,
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/article-canadas-arts-sector-needs-transformative-action-similar-to-works/
(Silver, Lord & Fox, 2020)
As Silver, Lord & Fox write,
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/article-canadas-arts-sector-needs-transformative-action-similar-to-works/
LOOKING AROUND THE WORLD
Germany
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/germany-another-1-billion-culture-bailout-1878870
Germany
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/germany-another-1-billion-culture-bailout-1878870
https://crosscut.com/2020/07/arts-need-new-deal-survive-pandemic
SWEDEN
Passed a law stating,
“Culture is to be a dynamic, challenging and independent force based on the freedom of expression. Everyone is to have the opportunity to participate in cultural life. Creativity, diversity and artistic quality are to be integral parts of society’s development.”
https://www.kulturradet.se/en/
https://pitchfork.com/features/article/how-countries-around-the-world-fund-musica
http://www.worldcitiescultureforum.com/assets/others/170503_WCCF_FullReport_%281%29.pdfnd-why-it-matters/
The government launched a new COVID-friendly budget allocation that contributes more to arts and culture than expected; Working to help artists during the pandemic, with opportunities available to everyone.
“Described as the largest cultural budget ever presented, broken down as follows:
SWEDEN
https://www.alternet.org/2014/02/culturally-impoverished-us-nea-spends-140th-what-germany-doles-out-arts-capita/
VIENNA
Average public expenditure on culture per capita:
https://www.wien.gv.at/statistik/pdf/viennainfigures-2020.pdf
https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2020/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-145975.pdf
VIENNA
Vienna has ⅔ the population of Toronto and spends almost 10x more per capita on arts & culture.
According to the Mercer Quality of Living Survey, Vienna ranks #1 for most livable city in the world (10 years in a row), whereas Toronto ranks #16.
https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2020/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-145975.pdf
https://michael-wimmer.at/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/88_MET_Spring_21_CityLife.pdf
https://mobilityexchange.mercer.com/insights/quality-of-living-rankings
https://www.wien.gv.at/statistik/pdf/viennainfigures-2020.pdf
VIENNA
Vienna spent 20.5 billion CAD (14 billion Euros) in 2019 for their municipal budget, 20% going to social welfare and housing promotion.
Toronto spent 13 billion CAD in 2018 for their municipal budget. In terms of municipal funding, “The police make up the single largest line item in the city’s operating budget. This year, council okayed a $1.2 billion gross operating budget for the Toronto Police Service.”
https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2020/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-145975.pdf
https://michael-wimmer.at/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/88_MET_Spring_21_CityLife.pdf
https://mobilityexchange.mercer.com/insights/quality-of-living-rankings
https://www.wien.gv.at/statistik/pdf/viennainfigures-2020.pdf
FINDING FUNDS
“Hudson [activist and writer] says the police budget is ‘just too high, based on everything else that we need in terms of services in the city of Toronto’...the police get far more funding in comparison to transit, paramedics and firefighters, or public housing. ‘The idea that we cannot provide safety and security to our society without a force that kills Black and Indigenous people is outrageous to me.’ She says that money spent on police should be reallocated to other services” (Warzecha, 2020)
https://www.tvo.org/article/is-the-toronto-police-budget-really-untouchable
Sandy Hudson, Activist & Writer.
FINDING FUNDS
Reallocating some funding from police towards arts & culture can support communities and help them thrive rather than put more bodies behind bars or worse - due to realities including the criminalization of poverty and systemic racism.
Economic Development & Culture gets roughly 1/14 as much as police services. You would have to multiply out the funding for economic development and culture more than fourteen times over to get the same type of funding as police services.
https://breachmedia.ca/toward-a-police-free-future-in-canada/
https://www.tvo.org/article/is-the-toronto-police-budget-really-untouchable
FINDING FUNDS
“The understanding that police need to be defunded has seen a spike in popular support. A national poll released last year, in the wake of a summer of protests, showed that more than one in every two people in Canada supported the call to defund police in their municipalities — an astonishing culture shift for a demand that was until recently only marginally known in social movements.” (Maynard, 2021)
https://breachmedia.ca/toward-a-police-free-future-in-canada/
FINDING FUNDS
“Recent research shows that a wealth tax in Canada would raise even more revenue than previously expected. A 1% annual tax on wealth over $20 million would raise approximately $10 billion in revenue per year, and a moderately more ambitious wealth tax could raise nearly $20 billion per year.”
(Hemingway, 2021)
“A wealth tax of this kind would only apply to the richest of the rich: the wealthiest 0.2% of Canadians. Together, these 25,000 households currently control $1.8 trillion of the country’s wealth.”
(Hemingway, 2021)
WEALTH TAX
https://www.policynote.ca/the-rich-and-the-rest-of-us/
“There is enormous public support across party lines for a wealth tax. Opponents have tried to argue that the rich could simply evade it, but a growing body of economic research from leading experts tells us that a wealth tax can be designed and enforced effectively. What’s been missing is the political will, not the technical or economic means.”
(Hemingway, 2021)
https://abacusdata.ca/wealth-tax-canada-poll/
WEALTH TAX
“8 in 10 (79%) Canadians favour the idea, including 35% who strongly favour it… [it] gets at least 75% support in every region, across all age groups, all levels of educational attainment, and is broadly (73%) supported by households in the top income bracket”
(Abacus Data, 2020)
https://www.policynote.ca/the-rich-and-the-rest-of-us/
DIRECTING THE FUNDS
Installation of Multi-Purpose Spaces
WHERE FUNDING CAN GO
73% of people attend arts events and do something else like going to a restaurant, bar, coffeeshop either beforehand or afterward.
People can fulfill their two different needs in one multi-purpose place at the same time. Besides, that benefits both arts and food & beverage sectors.
https://torontoartsfoundation.org/tac/media/taf/Research/2018-TAF-Arts-Stats-booklet.pdf
More Job Opportunities for Artists
Artists and arts workers can teach arts to children and youth in school, which creates more job opportunities for artists. In addition, those children who get familiar with arts and culture can enjoy a wider variety later.
https://torontoartsfoundation.org/tac/media/taf/Knowledge/2017_TAF-Arts-Stats-booklet_FINAL.pdf
EXAMPLE OF HIRING ARTISTS (1)
focusing on creating equity for Black, Indigenous and other underrepresented groups.
WHERE FUNDING CAN GO
EXAMPLE OF HIRING ARTISTS (2)
In Quebec, the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Health commissioned La Sams musicians to play concerts at twenty different vaccination clinics in the province. This has given artists jobs while also boosting vaccination efforts and calming anxious citizens at the clinics.
https://samsante.org/
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1898996803611
Amplification of Virtual arts and Culture Experiences
31% of Torontonians think that arts events are too far from where they live. Implementing virtual arts events that pay artists fairly makes room for the target audience to join from anywhere, not only locally, with 24/7 availability. They can experience art globally. With virtual events, there is no need to worry about social distancing or other concerns related to the spread of COVID-19.
https://torontoartsfoundation.org/tac/media/taf/Knowledge/2017_TAF-Arts-Stats-booklet_FINAL.pdf
https://torontoartsfoundation.org/tac/media/taf/Research/Toronto%20Arts%20Stats%202015/2016_Toronto-Arts-Stats-Booklet_public_FINAL.pdf
WHERE FUNDING CAN GO
HOW CAN ARTISTS BE MOBILIZED TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE?
https://teachers-climate-guide.fi/visual-arts/
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/making-art-and-environmental-activism-one-and-same
VISUAL ARTS
https://teachers-climate-guide.fi/visual-arts/
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/making-art-and-environmental-activism-one-and-same
CREATIVE IDEAS
‘a food cart for monarch butterflies’. She invited passersby to pop a balloon, releasing the seeds to plant themselves in the neighborhood.
https://jennykendler.com/section/399993-Milkweed-Dispersal-Balloons.html
CREATIVE IDEAS
https://artistsandclimatechange.com/
https://www.indigenousclimateaction.com/podcast/youth-artists-and-activism
https://niacentre.org/
CONCLUSION
From our research, systemic change in the arts and culture industries is political. The main gaps artists face, including unaffordable housing, lack of living wages and ongoing systemic racism are all connected to the policies that shape our society.
CONCLUSION
Implementing a wealth tax, jobs guarantee, building community hubs, hiring artists through a WPA-inspired government program, and shifting bloated areas of the budget, like policing, into community care, arts and culture, are all political mechanisms through which to address these gaps.
A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal, 2019.
CONCLUSION
Each of the aforementioned crises connects to the global system of capitalism, which is destroying the planet. The climate crisis we all face, left unchecked, has a death toll that scientists estimate, “could easily creep up into the hundreds of millions—or billions in the worst case scenarios—unleashing chaos and suffering on an unprecedented scale, all to pad a few corporate bottom lines”
OUR ADVICE
We advise the city to advocate urgently for a Green New Deal inclusive of artists:
a sweeping and radical set of communal supports and legislation based in social good, climate action, and activism for more a equitable and livable planet.
THANK YOU!