Building Your Creative Community

A recent panel offered by Alumni Relations, Building Your Community, featured ECU alumni from a medley of disciplines who have been busy pursuing dynamic careers. The event was one of four panels in the Alumni Career Pathway Series, designed to support emerging artists and designers through relevant, practical advice and insight.

The event was specifically focused on their respective art collectives or artist-run centres, as examples for current students and fellow alumni to consider as they envision their lives after graduation.

The panel featured:

• Zandi Dandizette (BMA 2014) | The James Black Gallery

• Jonny Sopotiuk (BFA 2018) + Annie Canto (MFA 2020) | VALU CO-OP

• Karen and Peggy Ngan (BFA 2005) | YACTAC

• Alia Hijaab (BMA 2018) | FLAVOURCEL

Together, they excitedly provided insights into their careers and offered wisdom for emerging creatives.

Read on for some of their best tips, or watch the full panel below.

Takeaway 1: Just Go For It

The event began with each panelist sharing how they found their community. A common theme was that each of them couldn’t find a model for sharing and creating art that worked for them, and so they decided to lead by example. Each panelist encouraged students to make those spaces that they want to see in the art world.

Alia with Flavourcel Animation Collective says “a spontaneous call to action” led to their inception. “You either have to go and work in industry and make movies and TV shows or you have to just be a solo artist in your basement, never talk to anyone again and make films for film festivals. We decided that we didn’t really like that duality and we wanted to create a new space."

Jonny says VALU CO-OP came together with the shared goal to transform labour practices within the arts and cultural sector after about a year of meetings. The unionized collective officially came together in January 2020.

Karen and Peggy met another pair of twin contemporary artists at a gallery in 2006 and decided to stay in touch. A year later, the four artists realized they had the same values and YACTAC came together.

Finally, the James Black Gallery came together serendipitously after Zandi graduated in 2014. The gallery operates in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood and offers space to new artists locally and internationally.

Takeaway 2: Collective Efforts Benefit Everyone

Each artist explained how their personal career has benefitted from working within a collective, with more individual opportunities as a result of their collaborative efforts.

Peggy says with the creation of YACTAC, “We had more opportunities to create organized art shows."

“Flavourcel made me realize how many opportunities there are for artists,” said Alia. “Everything became so much more available when all of us were working together.”

“One thing I have learned from VALU CO-OP is all of the ways you can navigate the art and cultural worker systems in order to get paid,” explained Annie. “Our mandate is to figure out how to have fair labour practices, figure out how to survive as an artist or cultural worker. Putting the co-op together, learning how to write grants and navigate these systems, it opened all these doors.”

Takeaway 3: Collectives Are the Future

“Working in collectives is a part of the future, I think that is a part of the change. It is all about sharing the wealth, the resources, the privilege.” Alia

Jonny and Annie also spoke about how intentional mutual aid and community engagement were ar part of building VALU CO-OP. Their grant funding and collective work has allowed them to provide wages for their members. They added, “It’s having a very material impact on artists in Vancouver.”

Top Tips for Emerging Artists

The panelists also shared advice, drawing from what they wished they had known when they started out. Communication, planning and perseverance were three recurring themes.

“Have deep conversations and discussions about goals early.” Alia

“Getting down to the nitty gritty, it would have been nice to know how hard it would all have been at the beginning but I think it is all worth it.” Jonny

“One of my bits of advice is to be what you want to see. For me I was searching for community so I built out from that and tried to build that sort of community that I wanted to see.” Zandi

“Learn some extra practical skills. The more you explore, the more you learn, then your world, your thinking will become more diverse, and you can put those things in your art practice." Karen.

Inspired? Watch the full panel on YouTube.