A larger presence in supporting the community
In October 2023, Arts Network Ottawa (ANO) and the Ottawa Arts Council (OAC) announced they would be undergoing a merger between their organizations.
The groups are still in the process of merging, having begun this process over two years ago. The decision comes from previous years of discussions, and planning around the overlap of their services and the community they provide to.
“Over the last couple of years, we’ve been operating independently as counsellors in different areas of the city with the same client, very similar deliverables, and mandates to provide services to artists or organizations in the community,” Nicole Milne, director of the OAC commented.
“And it became abundantly clear through our past discussions…the value of us merging together [as] a voice for arts and culture leaders so we’ve been in the process over the last two years.”
By merging the organizations, the ANO-OAC can do a lot more than they could have as separate entities, of which both are looking forward to being able to provide more resources to the community.
“We can have a stronger, more united voice for artists and arts-credit people in Ottawa,” Milne continued. “We can just do more… be able to balance more providing services to individual artists or to audiences that want to first want to live and work here, but also be able to have a greater influence on some of the policies that affect them.”
For both directors, they have found some difficulty in the novelty of what is trying to be done, but acknowledge the necessity of due diligence behind the process.
“The main challenge is time. But that’s also a gift because we need to be able to shape this new organization through the community’s voice… The challenge we’ve seen is really needing to take the time to do this work meaningfully.” Cassandra Olsthoorn, executive director for Arts Network Ottawa commented.
Milne and Olsthoorn also touched on the government’s public funding budget for arts and culture, of which they receive their funding. While the city maintains an approximate $30 million budget for funding arts and culture, Olsthoorn mentioned “there hasn’t been a huge investment in growing that cultural funding over the past eight years”.
In order to meet several of City Council arts and culture priorities, such as providing a path for students in Ottawa after they graduate, more funding and support is required.
“The main challenges that artists face are access to funding for their projects or their organizations, access to affordable spaces, marketing and installment, and support on equity, inclusion and access,” Milne continued.
When asked, both Milne and Olsthoorne agreed that an overall aim of this merger is to increase the presence of support for the community.
Milne added, “If we want an innovative city, who wants to change the brand of our city, want to attract students, and we want to attract tourists, we want to attract residents when supporting mental health reasons… We have here all kinds of big data around how our health into all of these things, and we want to, you know, make sure the artists are included in those big change machine projects for us all.”
The ANO-OAC has several amazing events to come, be sure to check their website and affiliate links for updates on the merger and other notes on the Ottawa arts community.
