Lyn X knows she’s earned a reputation as a caustic critic of arts funding. Over her 10 years in Edmonton’s arts scene, the program manager of the Edmonton Small Press Association has often complained about flagship arts organizations like Alberta Ballet and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra getting far more funding than smaller organizations. 

“I’ve had people tell me I’m the most offensive person they’ve ever met,” she says. “But what have I said? I’m just saying that this is bullshit. People are just too polite and are afraid that if they criticize, they are going to get shut out.”

And X certainly isn’t afraid to share her views on the recently wrapped Cultural Capital events. The city received $2,000,000 from the federal government along with the title of Cultural Capital for 2007. Artists, both as individuals and organizations, received roughly 50 per cent of the total budget though direct grants. The other million was spent on the events (New Year’s celebration in Churchill Square, the Poetry Festival, an international speakers’ series), on marketing, and on a survey.

While X acknowledges that the city made an effort to reach out to community arts organizations through the “explorations” grant program, she says the Cultural Capital program was characterized by the same elitism that she’s complained about for years in Edmonton. 

“If they are going to be really serious about community arts,” she says, “they should have had a forum at iHuman. But of course, that’s in the inner city and it’s dirty, so it’s never going to happen.... It just seemed like the term [community arts] was being co-opted by people who I think don’t really understand the concept.”

John Mahon, executive director of the Edmonton Arts Council, knows X’s stance all too well. He even appreciates her willingness to challenge the status quo. But, he adds, that it’s easy to be negative about the Cultural Capital spending. For instance, Mahon points to the  speakers series, which brought in such figures as John Holden from the Demos: The Think Tank for Everyday Democracy in England and consultant Glen Murray from Toronto. People may complain that it was expensive ($390,000), says Mahon, but it formed an essential part of the discussion the city wanted to generate around art and culture in Edmonton.

The majority of the speeches were very well attended, Mahon adds, and just because X thinks they didn’t have enough of a grassroots component, that doesn’t mean Edmontonians didn’t benefit from them.

“Take New Year’s,” he continues. “That’s the one that people think was the most frivolous. That was $200,000. A lot of that budget went directly to artists for their work that evening.” The $170,000 spent on the Poetry Festival also primarily went to local people, who would otherwise not have been employed in the arts sector. 

But X isn’t arguing against the poetry festival—or any other cultural event, for that matter. Indeed, she directly benefited from the Poetry Festival: she was employed as the festival’s anthology co-ordinator. What upsets her is that so much money went to what she sees as events that Edmonton artists were invited into something that was already planned, and intended only to lend the event an air of artistic “legitimacy.” (She points to the Poetry Festival’s inclusion of hip-hop performers as a particularly clumsy attempt to gain street cred.) 

“There should have been more of an effort to include those of us who have been working in the community for the last decade,” she says. Instead, she received an e-mail inviting her to hear outside experts talk about the importance of arts and culture. 

As for the long-term legacy of the Cultural Capital year here in Edmonton, it’s very hard to point to one project that definitively made Edmonton a more cultural and artistic city, but Mahon hopes that the city of the province see the promise in the Edmonton artistic scene and help continue these projects with more funding. 

“It was short-term cash,” says Steven Teeuwsen, founder of Notebook, an emerging Edmonton-based visual arts quarterly. “But it can’t be totally discounted. It got people working on some projects. And just the experience of doing one project encourages people to do others.”

He sees the speakers series, even at a cost of $390,000, as a great way for people to start thinking and talking about the importance of Edmonton’s arts scene. He believes the connection between potential art buyers and artists is the best way for artists to achieve long-term sustainability. The speakers series is one step towards making those connections. 

X hopes Teeuwsen is right. “I like to think there’s more awareness of community-based art and cultural development,” she says. “But I haven’t heard anything to make me think this is going to carry over.”