Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>
To: Canada Council Supervisor <███████████ @canadacouncil.ca>
dear ██████ ,
My name is Joshua Schwebel. I am an artist working on questions of art, capitalism and labour. I received your contact from █████████ ███████████ , who suggested that you might be able to help me figure out some of my questions.
I am currently writing a text as part of documentation of a CCA-funded artistic project, "The Employee". My project was working from the particular situation of Forest City Gallery, which employs a single staff member part time, yet is swamped by an immense and unfulfillable labour debt. In my text, I have been trying to figure out why wages can be so low for cultural workers in Canada. One piece of the puzzle, for me, is the funding structure, and what seems to be a lack of availability, or lower prioritization of operational funding vs. highly available project funds. From what I can see looking at the Annual General Reporting, when the new model was instated, there was a shift in how funding was allocated to core / project grants, but it is hard to find more detail than the infographic given in the report.
I am hoping for more information about how the allocation between core/project funding has changed over the past ten years, and more importantly, why that allocation has shifted.
If you help me find records of where and how priorities shifted in favour of project grants over core funding, this would be very helpful.
I would love the chance to speak (I believe that CCA employees use Teams instead of zoom), and would happily make myself available if you have the time.
my best,
Josh