Achieving Equity – a collaborative voice for change from small, IBPOC and marginalized arts organizations in response to COVID-19 emergency relief efforts and the arts. Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO) has been advocating for IBPOC and marginalized artists and arts organizations since our foundation in 2009. We continue our advocacy efforts during the COVID-19 crisis together with other arts service organizations to ensure that the needs of IBPOC and marginalized artists and arts organizations are heard and addressed. The following are current initiatives undertook by CPAMO and other arts service organizations:
Read our report: Achieving Equity Or Waiting For Godot: The Crawling Pace of Equity In the Arts And A Call To Action (for the GIA Racial Equity document mentioned in our report click here).
Sign MANO’s open letter – Media Arts Network of Ontario (MANO) has an open letter to the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, for more information visit MANO’s website and sign the open letter here to show your support.
CARFAC Ontario released an open letter from grassroots organizations read this letter here, and a letter to for funding recommendation here.
Perry Voulgaris has 30 years experience in arts, media, entertainment and digital leading organizations in the creation and delivery of compelling and innovative projects. 20 years Board experience with nonprofits, committees, collectives, movements and community organizations.
Kelly Lynne Ashton has over twenty-five years of experience on the business side of Canadian film, television and digital media. She has worked as an entertainment lawyer both in-house in several of Canada’s top television production companies and with my own practice representing producers, talent and broadcasters, produced children’s digital media, and worked in policy and government relations in film, television and digital media. She now assist cultural industry clients with research projects, policy and strategy development, government relations, government and government agency submissions, conference programming, project evaluations and consulting on diversity and inclusion initiatives. She also sits on the Program Advisory Committee for Centennial College’s Interactive Digital Media post-graduate program, writes a blog where she de-mystify Canadian media policy and regularly writes “The Wonk Report” for TV-eh.com.
Valerie Sing Turner is the founder/Artistic Producer of Visceral Visions, which incites intersectional and intercultural artistic community in Vancouver and beyond through a potent mix of storytelling, advocacy, and professional development. The company’s latest initiative is CultureBrew.Art, for which Valerie is Creative Director/Co-Executive Director as part of a shared leadership model with two other women of colour (Tri-ED). An award-winning multidisciplinary artist who performs, writes, dramaturges, and directs, her latest work in development is a 10-actor play, In the Shadow of the Mountains, for which she was artist-in-residence with National Arts Centre. A leading voice on issues of diversity/decolonization in the arts, Valerie was honoured as the 2019 recipient of UBCP/ACTRA’s International Women’s Day Award in recognition of her “outstanding contributions to the Union, the industry, and causes of social justice”. She is a member of Canadian Actors’ Equity, UBCP/ACTRA, Playwrights Guild of Canada, and Banff’s Cultural Leadership 2018-19 cohort.
Anju Singh is an active, multi-disciplinary artist who has worked in the non-profit and arts sector for over 15 years. Alongside her passion for the arts, Anju is excited about the ways in which she can apply technology in her work in arts and the non-profit sector. Anju’s degree in Philosophy from Simon Fraser University trained her for critical and analytic thinking, as well as a love for problem solving. Following her studies, her training was nicely rounded out by her experience working in arts and non-profit organizations where she developed values that prioritize people, relationships, and more equitable practices. Anju brings to CultureBrew.Art a breadth of skills including experience from the tech sector, non-profit management, human resources training, and a strong history of operations experience. As an artist and musician, Anju’s contributions and interests cross several artistic disciplines, an important element of CultureBrew.Art, and she brings extensive experience creating, producing, and showing artistic work.
Amy Mushinski joined the Canadian Opera Company as Public Affairs Manager in August 2005, and in 2017 assumed her current role of Associate Director, Public Affairs. She was previously with the Dominion Institute (Historica Canada), a small not-for-profit organization based in Toronto, dedicated to creating active and informed citizens through greater knowledge and appreciation of the Canadian story. Her responsibilities with the COC include advocacy, grant writing, community and sector relations, and liaising with the three levels of government supporting the company. Miss Mushinski is an active board member of Opera.ca and the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts. She serves as Chair of TAPA’s advocacy committee, leading municipal advocacy efforts for the arts and culture sector in Toronto. After graduating from York University with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Miss Mushinski worked for the Government of Ontario.
Sean Lee is an artist and curator exploring the notion of disability art and accessibility as the last avant-garde. His methodology reframes embodied difference as a means to resist traditional aesthetic idealities. Orienting towards a “crip horizon”, Sean gestures towards the transformative possibilities of a world that desires the way disability can disrupt.
Victoria Anne Warner (Research Coordinator) has been working in Disability Advocacy and Justice for over a decade. She discovered her passion for analysing, taking apart, and rebuilding access policies in the sci-fi convention world, and hasn’t stopped since. She has worked with CUPE Ontario as the first Equity Representative for Workers with Disabilities, and her research led to the creation of new courses for union members across Canada on disability and ableism. She is currently interested in how to disrupt traditional power structures, and how she can implement those values in her work while making sure that previously unheard voices are not only brought to the table but valued.
Christopher Sonnemann is the Director of Technology for The National Ballet of Canada. An experienced IT Professional with 17 years’ experience in Technology.
Jessa Agilo is an integrated arts producer with a three-decade career boosting social, economic, spatial, and digital justice for equity-seeking groups in Canadian arts and culture. As Founder of ArtsPond, since 2014 Jessa has led ground-breaking efforts including de-gentrification (Groundstory), digital transformation of arts services (DigitalASO), open source software (Hatch Open), platform cooperatives (Artse United), creative land trusts (Groundtrust), shared charitable platforms (Arts Working Group), COVID-19 pandemic (I Lost My Gig Canada), and more. As a consultant, Jessa has helped grow such diverse companies as Creative Users Projects, Roseneath Theatre, Ontario Culture Days, Workman Arts, Queer Arts Festival, Dreamwalker Dance, and many more. Jessa is a mentor to young spatial and digital justice changemakers from Humber College, University of Toronto, Ryerson University, and Cultural Human Resource Council’s Talent2Lead. She was recognized with the Humberto Santos Award in Business and Administration in 2006 and Toronto Arts Council’s Leaders Lab in 2019.
Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO) 
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