Fluidity of Talent

Excerpted from Future of the Arts in Edmonton, a talk delivered at the annual general meeting of the Edmonton Arts Council on April 3 by David Cheoros, the executive director of the Film and Video Arts Society of Alberta.

Heather D. Swain, local actor and playwright, has said, "No matter what, Edmonton will continue to make art, and we will continue to eat our young." I think that she meant that individuals will continue to burn out – because it continues to be a struggle to use art as a means of communication – but the overall spirit, that of trying to create, will re-emerge.

Rather than being reassuring, though, Heather was sounding a note of caution. Just because there will always be "art product" to fill a culture-shaped hole, there’s nothing to ensure that effective communication – good art – will result.

This trend – to encourage and reward the production of more work without necessarily being able to create effective art – is perfectly reflected in the AFA’s Community Derived Revenue policy, which measures the financial viability of a work of art without in any way responding to its quality.

I feel a bit uneasy advancing this argument. After all, I’ve spent the last five years of my life facilitating the creation of more art without in any way placing esthetic barriers or controls on it. I still believe that creating more work will "raise the middle." Simply, more work increases the volume of good work, even assuming the proportion of work that’s successful doesn’t rise. Hopefully, of course, giving our writers more opportunities to write, our choreographers to create, will increase their skill and effectiveness.

Countering this overall development of our artists is an ongoing migration to other areas. Although we tend to think of Edmonton as a kind of cultural island, intermingling of individuals and works will only increase. Through relatively inexpensive travel and electronic communication, we are also subject to an unprecedented mobility of talent to and from our city.

This is already pervasive in some art forms, of course – film and literature, for instance. As more and more cultural content is packaged for sale on Bravo, as circles of festivals and other presenters get better at spreading the word about emerging talent, Edmonton artists will be drawn even more into a broader market.

Some stay, of course: many of the finest of our artists have elected to remain here in Edmonton when they could have gone elsewhere. Who here doubts that Jeff Haslam could have spent the past ten summers at Stratford? That Brian Webb could have made a home and a company for himself in Vancouver, Toronto or New York? At the Film and Video Arts Society, there’s pressure to find ways for independent artists to make their work here and sell it internationally. And some do. But for every Stewart Lemoine there is a Frank Moher.

Heather’s point, I think, is that we as both individuals and a community spend tremendous energy developing an artist. The strength of our artistic community is based in part on that continuity – expertise and excellence that builds up not only within individuals but in the interrelationships between individuals. Presumably, with the ever-increasing ease with which individuals move between centres, these bits of "collective talent" will become more difficult to maintain. Regardless, when an established artist leaves, we are disproportionately the poorer, and the same resources and opportunities for a new artist the next year generally will not offer the same quality of work. There are some delightful exceptions, but they are just that – exceptions.

I sound less upbeat than I feel. In reality, I am constantly revitalized by the inflow of new individuals, new ideas, new artistic contexts to our city. I just want to make it easier to stay.

The call to action: Do whatever we can to maintain senior artists’ connection to our city. Even if they need to leave for some or most of the time to expand their own work, we need to maintain these connections or face the need to constantly reinvent our sense of community.