Betting Big: Should Canada be Investing in Cultural Infrastructure?

Full Panel
Transcript

Note to readers: This video session was transcribed using auto-transcribing software.  Questions or concerns with the transcription can be directed to events@canurb.org with “transcription” in the subject line.

Mary W Rowe Hi, everybody. It’s Mary Rowe I’m coming in to this morning. It’s this morning for me. I’m on the West Coast in Vancouver, which is the traditional unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. And as we know, Canada and countries in the colonial family have been … someone yesterday said “uninvited visitors” to ancestral territories around the world. And we always try to remind ourselves of that – to be not only cognizant of the history of the traditional territories that we are visiting in, but also what our obligation is to try to make city building practices and all the practices that we engage in day to day, more respectful, more in line with our ancestral obligations, but also just more inclusive. And we always remind ourselves we have a long way to go. And, and so, delighted to have everybody come in to another CityTalk and as we do often, please go into the chat and identify where you’re coming in from. And we come in … I remind people at CUI that we work in five time zones, which is important for us to be reminded of. So, please let us know where you’re coming in from. And today we have participants who are coming in from yet another time zone, on a really important topic. And I just want to acknowledge right off the bat, too, that we have parts of Canada now that are completely submerged in crisis because of the forest fire situation and what that has meant for evacuations in a number of northern communities across the country. Last week we were dealing with flood. Who knows what’s next? Pestilence and locusts … But this is part of the reality that we all live in, in community. And we watch with, you know, collective empathy, what the challenges are the communities are experiencing and here in Vancouver we can smell the smoke from the Alberta fires and it’s just a visceral reminder that we are in this together. And how do we navigate that together? And how do we find hopefulness? How do we remind ourselves that we do have collective capacity? And that we do share a sense of attachment and belonging with one another in the places that we live and choose to make our lives. So I thank you for joining us on CityTalk. As you know, we record these sessions, we post them, we post takeaways, and there’s a lively chat. I always put a plug in for the chat. We have some devoted CityTalkers who use that chat religiously. If you are a frequent visitor to CityTalk and you’re sitting there having your lunch or having your morning coffee or having afternoon tea, and you haven’t signed into the chat, I encourage you to do so because it’s a whole parallel universe over there, and all sorts of resources get shared. All sorts of questions get asked that you could be the one to answer. So I encourage you to put the chat on and engage with us. And as we always say at CityTalk, this isn’t the end of the conversation. This is just the beginning. And so we will end sharply on the hour. But just know the conversation continues and these topics don’t go away either. So I’m just really pleased to have colleagues joining us. I’m going to ask them to put the cameras on. And just to provide a little bit of context that at CUI we’ve been infrastructure all the time for the last several weeks, and we are working up to Canada’s second annual State of the City Summit in December. And that notice, I think, just went out yesterday. Registration opened … registration’s open. Get your cards ready. It’s on the 5th and 6th of December this year. And the theme is on infrastructure. And what is the scale of the infrastructure deficit in Canada? And in other countries that are in similar kinds of states that we are … How do we actually invest in infrastructure? And today the conversation is going to be, “how do we define infrastructure”? People tend to think infrastructures are bridges and roads, but infrastructure takes all sorts of forms. We did a report a couple of weeks ago for the Canadian Infrastructure Bank – they actually wrote it, we have promoted it and highlighted it. I did a number of interviews about it, and my little catchphrase was “I was trying to make infrastructure sexy”. It’s one of those things that you rely on it, but you don’t necessarily even know it’s there. And you sure don’t know who pays for it. And as we move into this next era and as we see around us, infrastructure starting to age, fail, not be equipped for the coming climate challenges, all those things … But we also see all sorts of ways in which we have reinforced a sense of our attachment to one another, our commitment to one another, to our sense of belonging. We see that that is dependent on cultural infrastructure, which is the topic for today. And I’m really pleased to have the gang joining us to give us your insights about what you’re observing. And you’re coming from very different perspectives. Now, the other great thing about today is we are working en deux langues. So the first thing you should do is go down to the … everybody … This is always a test to see whether anybody listens to the moderator. Go to the bottom of your screen and you will see a globe, a little globe, and you can click on that globe. You’re all Zoom Pros, so you’ve probably already done it, but click on that globe and choose the language into what you would like to hear. And then through the magic of a wonderful translator, you’re going to hear in the language that you want to hear in. But I want to just express my appreciation. Thank you for Éric, who is going to be working in both languages, but his first language … Éric, your first language is French, correct?

Éric Lefebvre Yes. Of course. My first language is French. Indeed.

Mary W Rowe Right. So, I think I probably have to mute myself so that everybody doesn’t hear my translation, but I’ll work that out. In the meantime, we will … People should feel free to speak in either French or English. And as I say, we will have someone assisting us to make sure we can understand one another. And it may be a really helpful thing in that it will slow us down a little bit, particularly me, who tends to talk très vite. So I’m going to start, if I could, I’d like to hear from Natalia, because you’ve done this big honking study and, I tried to wade my way through it. People … we’ll put it in the chat, folks. So, in your spare time tonight for sure read this study. It is a wakeup call for us I think, about what’s happening around the globe, and you’re going to set a really interesting context for us, Natalia. So thank you for joining CityTalk. Delighted to have you. And we’ll start with you. And then we’ll do the round robin. And then we’ll have the bun fight and it’s all going to be great. And everybody feel free to chime into the chat as you see fit. Welcome to CityTalk, Natalia.

Natalia Vartapetova Thank you. Mary. Great to join you all today. So the study Mary refers to is something we’re calling Cultural Infrastructure Index. It’s a set of data that AEA Consulting has been tracking for the past, 7 or 8 years. And so the most recent one we released covers 2023. And we are tracking large scale cultural infrastructure projects, with announced capital project budget of 10 million USD or more. So, that’s just to give you some context for what the study includes and what this data tracks are the projects that have been publicly announced as completed or is in any stage of their planning. And we tried to track the data in multiple languages, across different territories around the world. And what we are seeing really, from this most recent year and from prior years is that the investment in cultural infrastructure internationally continues to increase. Given recent macro events, there’s some shift in terms of average budgets spent on cultural buildings and the costs of construction that I’m sure you’re aware of. And that applies to other infrastructure projects and similar with cultural buildings. And, we are looking at a range of different cultural projects, from theaters to museums to larger cultural hubs and multidisciplinary centers. And we are seeing that across all of these categories, countries around the world continue to invest in developing new buildings, but also as much and maybe increasingly so we’re seeing adaptive reuse of historic buildings or commercial and industrial infrastructure into cultural uses, which is an interesting trend. The trend we are discussing in this particular release of cultural infrastructure is around sustainability and cultural infrastructure, and how we can achieve perhaps greater sustainability. And … I’m sure Phillipa and Éric will have some comments as they are working from the buildings that were built decades ago and that now have to be adapted to all these challenges that we’re living through, including climate change and the pursuit for greater energy efficiency. But at the same time, we want to maintain the fabric of the buildings and the quality of the buildings. And what’s probably common for many cultural buildings is that they are quite expensive to build and maintain. But at the same time, they are necessary for the general kind of arts and cultural production in our cities because they are the essential support infrastructure for artists and for makers and for creators, as well as for presenting arts to audiences. And that’s why we see that a lot of this investment comes from public funds. So it’s state and regional and national governments investing in this cultural infrastructure, as well as projects driven by the not for profit. So securing some contributed income, and probably the leaders in that across all the years have been tracking this data are the United States and Western Europe more broadly. But we are also seeing kind of emerging significant other centers of big infrastructure developments, including the Arabian Gulf and some parts of Asia, and also some larger cities in what we sometimes call the Global South. And also investing on the national level in big museums and performing arts complexes. So maybe I’ll stop here to get us started and happy to answer any questions.

Mary W Rowe Yeah. That’s fantastic. Just a couple of very basic questions from me and then we’ll keep going around the room. When you define cultural infrastructure, how do you decide what’s in and what’s out?

Natalia Vartapetova Sure. So we understand cultural infrastructure to be buildings whose primary focus is cultural use or creative and cultural use. So that includes presenting arts and culture. So museums and visual art galleries fall under that. Performing arts theaters, performing arts centers, concert halls, and also cultural production hubs. So artist studios, maker studios, and more broadly, places where the core activity is the arts and cultural production, presentation and consumption.

Mary W Rowe So their primary function. But for instance, a library is that cultural infrastructure?

Natalia Vartapetova A library would be considered cultural infrastructure as well, especially now that we’re seeing a lot of libraries actually moving from being solely, kind of repositories of knowledge and data to being cultural hubs for their communities.

Mary W Rowe Right. This topic is so fascinating to me because, of course, cities are old. They last a long time … Communities too. And places adapt and change. And I’m going to go now to Europe, because … well to the UK and ask our colleagues at the Barbican because these buildings change in functions, they change in uses over decades … Decades that they were this and they are that. And we see that in faith spaces too. That … In particular in Europe, you see it where someplace may have been a Christian place of worship. And then it becomes a synagogue, and then it becomes a mosque, and then it goes back. And so this constant kind of flexibility that we have to adapt and at the Barbican is famous for this. So, Philippa, thank you for joining us and give us your perspective if you could. I should have asked Natalie where you’re coming in from. But where are you … you’re In London Philippa?

Phillipa Simpson Yes. Yeah, yeah. I’m in London …

Mary W Rowe Give us your sort of perspective.

Phillipa Simpson Thank you so much. Yeah. I mean it is a fascinating conversation to be a part of. And I think just listening there … it Is really about actually, yeah, your definition of what a cultural organization is has obviously changed over the years. And I think we feel that as well. So the Barbican’s a really interesting, I think case study, because it sits right at the heart of a capital city. It sits in the heart of London in what we call the Square Mile, which is the financial district. And actually understanding what it means to have a cultural center within that context is really quite particular and I think more recently has been understood as a way of actually driving talent into the financial district. So it’s something which attracts people to work in that, in that space. And to come into the offices and particularly post pandemic. But when it was first conceived and I don’t know if you know … I mean, the history of where Barbican is, is fortress. It’s a fortress that sits within a city wall. And that’s very much what we always sit within the city walls of London. But where we are now and thinking about how we use our building and adapt it for the future, it’s really about understanding how we can become more porous, a space that’s inclusive and equitable, a space that welcomes new audiences and draws people in from around the country and overseas. I should say that I actually, until just about a few months ago, I was working at the Victoria and Albert Museum. That was my previous role, undertaking projects there. And a whole different context there where it’s very international tourism-led and actually a free, you know, free museum. And there’s something about the kind of … The status, if you like, and the kind of architecture of the Victorian building which speaks to something very, very different again, which is perhaps more this kind of repository of a gorgeous collection. The Barbican is a very vital space of dialog, I would say, and people coming together, and coming together in an encounter with creative industries. And I think that’s the other thing, from my perspective, that I think, you know, we are a publicly funded organization, I should say 40% of our revenue funding year on year is from our local authority, the city. But everything else we have to generate ourselves. And there’s something about that sort of dual persona, if you like, that … You know, we’re both kind of, you know, we are subsidized, but we also have to be nimble. We have to be, you know, entrepreneurial in how we operate. Which means that we kind of straddle every part of the city in every way of working. And it really keeps us on our toes in terms of thinking who our audiences are, what the demand is, what we need to provide for them and what our relationship is with them. So it’s yeah, that kind of constant reinvention. I often say, actually, the Barbican is always referred to as this great brutalist icon of architecture. And if one thinks of brutal as being something hard and difficult and I like to remind them that, it actually comes from the French word “brut” for “raw” … And we are and should be always raw, always reinventing, always rethinking. And that for me is been a really useful sort of point of reference, I would say. And I suppose the final thing, which was around your question on sustainability, which I think is fascinating, particularly in a building of this nature, which is now sort of 42 years old, you know, working out how we can be both more sustainable but also more resilient to climate change – Is a real challenge, but one where I feel, you know, we have an opportunity to lead the field because we are public facing, that what we do really is a tone setter and a bar setter, if you like, for the rest of the country. And, you know, a horrible truth is, it’s harder in a 42 year old building, I’m beginning to find, than it is a 150 year old building somehow to, you know, become more green in how we operate. There’s, you know, there’s some real challenges that are inherent in the materiality, and the infrastructure. But something about the way we can knit back into the community and start kind of, you know, sharing these messages of sustainability not only in terms of ecology, but sustainability in terms of audiences and, and communities. I think, you know, it’s a really, really, really powerful position to be in. So this, this kind of, you know, public investment not only of, of money and economy, but also public investment in terms of just support and advocacy. It’s something that, you know, it’s really, really, significant for us.

Mary W Rowe You use a whole bunch of concepts there that are fantastic.

Phillipa Simpson Yeah. Sorry, that was a big old spin.

Mary W Rowe No that’s fine. No, no, I love that. And it’s interesting, you know, we often say at CUI – it’s all the same conversation, whether we’re talking about economic development or climate readiness or neighborhood resilience or housing … the principles that you just flagged around, I don’t know if this is a word, but I’m going to make it so porosity – this idea that cities are an ecosystem, communities are an ecosystem. That means they’re dependent on connectivity and movement and movement of energy and people. So this idea that a cultural facility needs to be porous, I love that. I still think the comment about … it’s sometimes, easier with 150 year old building than a 42 year old building. I definitely get that – we in Canada, we’re younger than you, so we live with the 60 year old building rather than 150 year old building often. But there is something about it’s a good old adage, you know, the old ways of knowing, and that the materiality that you just flagged, this is part of that acknowledgment we did at the beginning that we live with ancestral knowledge and traditional knowledge, that we are not always the greatest at trying to tap into to make sure that we’re benefiting from it. We’ll come back to some of the questions that you’re talking about, about fabric and inequality and all that kind of thing. We’re getting lots of questions in the chat. Thanks gang. Thanks chat people, don’t let me down. Keep asking your questions there. And we will continue to feed them into the conversation. I want to now go … One of the things that, Phillipa sort of flagged, which I think is interesting, is when you have a cultural asset who is at for, who is at for, and how do you juggle the, the visitor economy, of which there’s tons of pressure to generate, in particular if you’re in a capital city like London, tons of pressure to create an amenity that will attract visitors. But at the same time, you obviously want to have these places serve locals. And so, Éric, I’m going to come to you next because the Quartier des spectacles is exactly what it is. And it serves both locals and visitors. And I’ll be interested to hear from you, your perspective … It’s been around for a long time. I’m now giving people enough time to make sure you have found your translation. Your language of choice because Éric will speak in French, and then we will have some interaction with him in both languages. So, Éric, welcome, bienvenu. We’re delighted to have you and delighted to have the Montreal perspective and particularly in your role. So thank you for joining us. And I hope everybody’s got their translation equipment ready so that they will understand you in both languages. Thanks for joining us.

Éric Lefebvre Merci. Thank you for inviting me, Mary. Thank you so much. So yes, I think infrastructure is a matter of public space. So we are trying to create common spaces that will serve all of the population in the Quartier de Spectacle … That neighborhood is central to Montreal is, first of all, an economic project. We wanted to give a new life to the downtown Montreal. We started that 20 years ago, and we wanted to develop wide public spaces and the urban theaters that would allow free access to culture. We want to develop and generate human traffic in the downtown so that people could live in this sector. It’s Built 100% by Montrealers. We know that this will be of interest to tourists. We will be able to invite tourists because they will be here to meet with local artists and local citizens. And, so far so good, things are working very well. We wanted to invest in cultural infrastructure. So $200 million in public funds were invested, with a goal to generate private investments afterwards. So we’ve been following these investments for 20 years. So $200 million in public funds generated $5 billion in public investments. So we have been able to go further. And we’ve seen with the pandemic, everywhere in the world, people started using parks more and more. So these third party spaces are used here as meeting spaces at the Quartier des Spectacle. We managed to create these locations, these spaces, and we are highly surprised by this effervescence of people, artists, visitors, and our whole project is revolving around this meeting space.

Mary W Rowe Thanks, Éric, as I say, this is a really, valuable exercise for us to work in two languages. It just reminds us that we need to, in as many ways as possible, make our programs as accessible as they can be. So those of you in the chat who are registering how appreciative you are of translation, we need to look for more and more ways to do this so that we can share across cultural groups and linguistic groups. But maybe it’s not just French … maybe we should be working in other languages as well. Éric, a question for you … Can you just lay out for people the history of the Quartier, the Quartier … I’m not quite saying it correctly … The size of it. Has it grown over time? And the point you make, which is so important, is that You just had that extraordinary number – a $200 million investment has resulted in I think you said $4.5 billion … Some incredibly big number. So just refresh people’s memory, because I think the dilemma that a lot of us are facing is that there may have been an initial public investment, capital, that created the asset. And then the challenge is how do you operate it over time? How do you program it? And then what happens when the asset ages and it needs reinvestment? So, just a few more details en français, s’il vous plaît. And then I’m going to go to the other part of the country, to Sarah in Calgary. Thanks, Éric.

Éric Lefebvre Yes. Of course. Well, historically, as in many neighborhoods in the world, it’s like the red light district of Montreal. It was at the end of the 1930s, after the prohibition in the United States. A lot of United States citizens went to Montreal, were going to Montreal to party. Montreal was a partying place, but also a place where there was a lot of gambling, prostitution and everything related. But it brought along a lot of jazz groups which created Montreal’s reputation, and this effervescence went to St. Laurent, Saint Catherine streets in the Quartier des Spectacles. And then, overnight, right beside it, Quartier des Spectacles is the name, but it’s been a place, a space … For 100 years it was an underground space at the beginning. So all of this is part of Montreal’s DNA. And then the first cinemas and theaters appeared in that neighborhood. And the fact that slowly but surely, these spaces that were also undervalued, devalued, and creators and artists came afterwards and it gave it back its value because it had been left out by other industries. So it allowed to make it safe again. Around the 80s in Montreal, the industry of festivals, major public events, this industry blossomed and we had a lot of vacant parking lots, of vacant pieces of land to have these festivals. And we were using little clubs and bars and small showrooms in the vicinity. And we created this Quartier des Spectacles. And then we started having bigger shows, bigger events. So this business model developed in Montreal around the festivals – around the year 2000, we wanted to make these spaces more, or give them more longevity and bring a positive influx of energy for downtown Montreal. So a lot of these infrastructures are 60, 70 years old, as you said. So the challenge is to maintain these assets. We don’t have any secret solution to do that, but the asset maintenance plan is at the core of discussions for the next steps. For heritage sites … We have a lot of churches that are now used by the cultural sector. We have more complex infrastructure as well. The challenge is to develop a cycle and understand the economic impact of these cultural spaces. Or who benefits from that. We have this relationship with the public, with cultural companies. But now we have dozens of restaurants that that sprung up after these investments, public investments. A lot of the real estate promoters sold very pricey apartments in the neighborhood because they’re close to the Quartier des Spectacles. It Is a very expensive place to live. So how can we tap into the value created by creation industries, by the cultural sector and create a virtual cycle so that money is reinvested in production, artists and maintenance of these assets? That’s the question.

Mary W Rowe Yeah, we’re back to that ecosystem, understanding that it all works in tandem with one another. I appreciated you flagging, and you telling the story of the Montreal DNA. It’s wonderful to think about that. And that’s probably the gambling and the red light district and all these things. We can think of cities around the world where something that was the red light district … You have to be of a certain generation to know what a red light district is. Somebody can put into the chat, who’s of a certain age, explain to everybody else what a red light district is. But the idea that that would inform a kind of morphing and I’m sure that … I’m sure that Phillip thinks about that too, in terms of when you’re in a historic building, you’re in a fortress. It’s so interesting how we transform these uses and how do we continue to harvest the benefits of the history of a place and as you suggested, Éric, the cultural DNA that’s present there. So let’s go to a different kind of cultural DNA. And the other piece was that you flagged, which will lead beautifully into Sarah, is the public investment can be the catalyst, it can be the starter, it can be the underpinning. And then how do you leverage other … We’re now going to go to Calgary. And Sarah, you’ve just had a big honking announcement, which is fantastic. And I’ve been to the Arts Common and it’s a boggling facility with so much potential, but already so much there. I think really what we should commit to gang is a road trip. And all of you, we’re all going to go to the Barbican, and then we’re going to go to Quartier des Spectacles and then we’re going to go to the Arts Common and then Natalia, you’re going to choose the next place we go to because it’s going to be some place somewhere, wherever, where we’ll learn. But Sarah talk to us about the approach that’s being taken in Calgary. And what do you … you’re just at the bursting stage now. But tell us why you think you were able to persuade folks to make the investment in the first place? And what do you see as the sort of challenges ahead?

Sarah G. Stanley Well, first of all, thank you so much for including me in this conversation. And it’s so incredible to be in a conversation with the Barbican and the Quartier des Spectacles. I’m from Montreal originally. I’m actually calling in from Mi’kmaq territory in southwest Nova Scotia today … On a little bit of a vacation, which is wonderful. And I’ve been to the Barbican and what’s fascinating about this conversation is that really Arts Commons is a meeting place, I would say in many ways between the Mi’kmaq and the Barbican, in that we are absolutely a civic space. We are in full relationship with the city of Calgary. And hi to Karen Y from Calgary. I saw you there. And to my other Albertan colleagues who are here listening today. It’s great to know you’re here. And I want to flag a bunch of things that have come up since listening. The first is, you know, what’s in as a cultural infrastructural space and what’s out. And our announcement was made at the same time as the mayor of Calgary was dealing, and all of Calgarians were dealing with the busted water mains. So when we talk about infrastructure and what kind of underpins our capacity to enjoy culture of any kind, water becomes … And as we know, across Canada is an issue for many people, and Calgary was facing it at that time. And so it feeds into … when infrastructure begins to age. And how do we ignite an interest and an excitement about buildings? I think a big part of what’s made our recent news possible has to do with a long and kind of dogged determination that was started by the founders of Arts Commons for women who in the 70s felt that for Calgary to become a place of cultural interest, it needed to have a home that could hold that at its heart. And so, over the course of a number of years and their determination, they were able to talk to the provincial government and ultimately the civic government into supporting this vision for what was then the Calgary Center for the Performing Arts, which opened in 1985. Almost on the heels of that, it really … It just shot out into a very exciting space. One Yellow Rabbit, which still exists today, immediately sort of took sort of the international, multi-disciplinary world by storm. And Calgary did become a space that people came to, which timed out almost to the three year difference to the Olympics coming to Calgary. Arts Commons sits on Olympic Plaza. It was the first time in Olympic history that the medal ceremony was not done at the site of the event. They were all brought down to Olympic Plaza, and that sits at the center of our campus, that we are now in the in the process of reimagining for the future, and it’s going into redevelopment shortly. So we’re in the midst of what is referred to as one of the largest cultural infrastructural projects in Canadian history. Right now, it’s $660 million is what it’s priced at. And that is for a brand new building to house a thousand seat theater and a 200 seat theater. A modernization of our existing building, which will not impact three of the major rooms, the Jack Singer Concert Hall, which seats 1800 people. The Max Bell, which seats 750, and the Martha Cohen, which seats about 400. But there will be a number of movements around all of those spaces, which means that some of the smaller spaces that are resident companies, One Yellow Rabbit and Downstage use on a regular basis, they will still be in the mix, but they’ll be different spaces in the modernization project. And it includes a redesign of Olympic Plaza. So it was so curious to see in the questions about the relationship of the Quartier des Spectacles and the Olympic Plaza and how we’re also in an ongoing relationship to the history and the way in which members of the Calgary community remember, whether they remember or their parents remember or cousins or family remember, because many of them bought bricks, as a way to kind of have some permanence with respect to that moment. And now we’re going into a moment where this is going to be redesigned. And so we have a responsibility to honor that more recent memory. And then we have responsibilities to honor deeper memories, which Olympic Plaza was on an earlier version of a Chinatown. And so that still exists within the relatively recent memory. And then, of course, we’re on land that was not ours to begin with, with respect to the many Treaty Seven territories that call that space, intersection, that space home. So infrastructure is such an incredibly important place to draw a lot of energy, to draw tourism, to draw excitement and to draw interest. But just to say, on the flip side of that, because someone did ask that question, infrastructure does not pay the bills for any of the operation of the culture that is made within it. And so I know that the Barbican knows very much about what I’m speaking about. And I know that the theaters within the Quartier des Spectacles know very much what I’m speaking about. And I’m sure that Éric, you know very, very well …

Mary W Rowe Let’s put everybody into the conversation, because we go to all these challenges that are affecting all of you, we’re all at different stages of it. So, can I get everybody’s camera on? And we’ll now have that sort of round robin conversation. So many important things. I want to be with you guys all afternoon. Just saying. Because we got so much we could be talking about. And you can see … A lot of people want to come on the trip, Natalia, that you’re planning. So get our itinerary ready because everybody wants to come. A couple of things … One question for sort of the times. The times. How difficult, how much of a challenge is it when we see so many competing demands for public resources and particularly around different kinds of challenges around health care, essential services? And a lot of the topics that a lot of our CityTalkers are immersed in … homelessness, mental health supports, economic development …. How do you guys square that with these kinds of investments on the capital side? And, Phillipa, I’m going to come to you first. And then the second thing would be, the G word. En français, what is the word for gentrification? But is there a downside that when these kinds of investments go in, it actually … we end up creating situations where the artists are actually priced out and the neighborhoods become too expensive. And so Phillipa, first to you and then, I’ll go back and swing around and anybody else that wants to comment … I won’t go in sequence. So let’s just start with Phillipa and then if you’ve got a comment, let me know. Go ahead Phillipa …

Phillipa Simpson Brilliant. Thank you. Okay, so starting with the public funding question, and I’m suspecting that our landscape is imminently to change because we’ve just had a change in government and a totally new approach to investment in the arts, which is brilliant for us, actually, because we have suffered a real depletion over the past 14 years. But in terms of squaring it, I suppose it’s, you know, and believe me, I’ve just been through writing the business case for this next phase of the renewal of the Barbican Center. And it’s really being couched in understanding the broader social value and the broader ecological value of these spaces. You know, we’ve calculated that the Barbican in itself brings 80 million pounds of investment to London annually, you know, which is no small amount. And that can help to kind of, attract funding and to build support. But in terms of just the kind of, you know, the soft power, if you like, of these organizations, it’s, you know, it’s exponential. And I think, you know, it’s not really … for me anyway, it’s not a landscape of competition with health funding and wellbeing funding or education. It is all … we are all pulling towards the same goal, which is better lives for everyone. So I think I think kind of, slightly recalibrating that that sensibility around public funding, I think it is also really important to say it’s probably a very different landscape in the UK than it is … well I say in the States, I don’t know if Canada is slightly different again, but we, you know, there’s a lot of … we might raise our own funds for a lot of the work that we do here. But there’s a kind of, again, a dropping off of donors and grants here against that. So that’s a challenge for us, currently.

Mary W Rowe We’re seeing the same thing, the drop off of corporate resources and private giving. So you’re seeing that in the UK as well. Just can … can I just thank the hive on the chat and including Ziti who has told me that the gentrification word in French … Éric, this is a wonderful word … embourgeoisement … Of course it is. What a beautiful word … embourgeoisement. But, just back to this, Éric, you can comment en français … and also, I just want to say, I don’t think we’ve ever had in 200 CityTalks, somebody post a link to a Sting song. So thank you for that. Having to do with defining red light districts … Go listen to “Roxanne” after the broadcast. Go ahead, Éric, a comment from you in terms of this balancing act that we have to play. Go ahead.

Éric Lefebvre Yes. What’s very interesting is that there’s an economic impact. Economic returns. But you asked a question earlier Mary, how do we compete with issues that impact citizens more directly? Because about health care … You know, that’s a direct impact on citizens. The cultural space must be able to contribute to these issues. By the way, that’s why with AEA consulting and the Cultural Neighborhoods Network, we’ve had high interest in cultural spaces, cultural neighborhoods, to be able to understand what our contribution is to homelessness, which is a major issue everywhere. So how do we create spaces by generating traffic, by attracting people. We can improve social cohabitation, social co-living. If we can count on certain politicians to strike a balance and to not forget about culture, we have to be the forefront of these questions and contribute to finding the answer to these questions by improving the quality of life of citizens in cities and downtown areas. It’s key for obtaining more cultural investments.

Mary W Rowe Yeah, and I can imagine the art community saying, “come on, why do we have to keep justifying our existence? Why do we have to go through these lengths to prove that we’re economically valuable or that we’re socially valuable?” And we hear your pain on that. I guess the only consolation I can say is that I think all sectors are up against this, trying to figure out how do you suggest you’re part of the whole, what Phillipa was just suggesting and what Éric said, that it’s a collective investment, that produces social and economic and civic benefits. Natalia, when you put the index together, by calling it the Cultural Infrastructure Index, and I appreciate the precision of that, but in a way does that further people thinking, “oh, that’s culture”, you know, as opposed … and we at CUI are kind of seized with this. Are there other tools that we could be creating, other indices we should be creating that somehow speak to the whole? We feel this way on housing, for instance, you can’t just go in and build more housing. That is not a solution, in and of itself. So when you were coming up with the index, did you think about how you could make it broader, or was there a concern you would lose some precision if you did that?

Natalia Vartapetova Yes. That’s something we continue to think about as the Index sort of evolves, what sort of data we’re collecting. And it has evolved over the years, weighing all kind of different types of buildings we’ve seen in the recent years, for example, the emergence of immersive spaces, which we’re also considering cultural spaces, and they have very different set of specs and requirements from your more traditional arts and cultural infrastructure, which is interesting to see as to which buildings they tend to adopt. And now we’re also focusing a little bit more on, again, adaptive reuse of historical infrastructure and buildings that in prior lives might have been hospitals and prisons and courts, and other civic buildings that are now repurposed for cultural uses. And I guess going back to your question about conflicting pressures, there’s another element there is that, there’s quite often a lot of excitement, actually, about building projects, even if they do take a while and do take what’s considered public investment. But, it’s also important to plan their operations moving forward, and think about the impact and have that kind of … Some sort of intended impact set out at the start of the capital project or at the start of expansion or innovation, thinking about what impact it would have on local community and artists and whether it would bring tourists in and how local communities will then in turn deal with those levels of tourism. So trying to plan it ahead and put that into more concise kind of quantitative metrics is quite helpful.

Mary W Rowe I mean we, we are familiar with this term multi-solving that every investment that any of us make … public investment, corporate investment, we never want to just be solving one problem. So the idea that a cultural investment is a multi-solving investment, which I’m assuming Sarah is underpinning a lot of what your strategy is for the Arts Commmons. We see this in downtowns … downtowns, and I don’t know what it’s like for you Phillipa, in the UK, but downtowns in Canadian North American cities are struggling because we have fewer people coming downtown, we have fewer eyes on the street. And they were already challenged probably before the pandemic. But now they’re really challenged. And we have assets. We have old buildings that may be owned by the government, or they could be owned by a bank and they’re not filled. And so how do we … your sector, the cultural sector is probably the best sector at modeling adaptive reuse. So can I hear from Phillipa first and then Sarah about this? Phillipa, you’re in an old, old, old city. You laid the track for adaptive reuse and for creating these kinds of hubs? Tips for the rest of us. Sarah is in a relatively young city compared to yours … just saying …

Phillipa Simpson Oh my goodness. Tips the rest of us. What can I say? I mean, yeah, that is true actually in London it has been pretty good and fleet in foot about it, I would say, and you know, we have some fantastic … I don’t know if any of you visited … There’s an amazing place on the Strand in London, which is a really central street called 180 The Strand was has taken over, you know, what was a car park and a, you know, part of an old tube station. And, you know, I think, what is the tip? The tip is less is more. Like I think what we have found is that people are really increasingly actually, in particular younger generations, and I’m sure you’re finding this too … Invest in their money and their kind of footfall, less in a kind of an acquisitive sense of getting something but more in sort of experience. They’re very interested in … And it’s Instagrammable and it’s social and it’s about community and it’s about dialog and actually creating spaces where that can happen in a much more informal, less didactic, less kind of, you know, traditional sense I suppose. It has been really very fruitful for all of us. And I can say at the Barbican as well, actually, we have some pretty traditional venues within us, a theater and a concert hall, but actually something which is much more about dialog and about participation that has been the driver for us. And it can be a very easy switch actually, if done cleverly.

Mary W Rowe Just bear with me as I use an American adage, but you know, the old … “If you build it, they will come” adage … Does that work? Because we’re getting a question in the chat, shouldn’t we be programing first?

Phillipa Simpson It is program first. No, I agree, I do agree. But I think there is something about finding the spaces in which to do that programing that is not the kind of, you know … The places where people feel are fossilized or whether, you know, there is something about place as well, you know, and how you feel about that place and where you’re going. So it’s the two … It’s both/and perhaps … But I do agree it’s programing first …

Mary W Rowe The interaction. And you know, I, I’m a big one for – what are we going do with malls. Like we’ve got … like malls need to be turned into interactive spaces.

Sarah G. Stanley They’re great. Yeah. They’re great cultural spaces waiting to happen. And in fact in Calgary, the active malls are some of the most culturally diverse and exciting spaces to be for, you know, intergenerationally. So, I just want to jump in with something that might be a bit contentious, but I think we do ourselves a disservice in the culture sector to speak outside the cultural sector about making sure that artists are being cared for because it segregates artists from people needing to be cared for. And so much of what we’re aiming to do with Arts Commons is to really think about holistically, the people who come downtown, the people who use, downtown, be it to park, be it to go for a coffee, be it to sit outside, be it to engage in a conversation, be it to see a show. And also, yes, we do need to ensure that artists are able to survive. But it’s not, to my mind, a useful conversation in the infrastructure conversation to say, “well, we have to ensure that artists are being cared for” outside of other individuals. We need to look at the people as holistically as the infrastructure. And Calgary is very different from a number of cities in that we have a lot of commercial space downtown. We are one of those newer cities where there was really not much housing that was being considered because people were driving down. And so we’re like a lot of Western cities, I guess. And so right now, part of the, potential excitement around Arts Commons, of which there’s many, is that it helps to offer the possibility of more people considering becoming downtown dwellers … Not driving in, not being … We’re a famous donut city. Not in terms of donut economics, but in terms of actual travel. And, and so, there’s a really exciting relationship to be considered between these infrastructural additions that are cultural in perspective, that will – we trust, improve the lives of many, many people on many different levels. And so I just, I do want to put that flag up about, as an artist, and that’s been my trade, of course, I am concerned about my colleagues, but I’m as concerned about my fellow humans. And I think we sometimes fall into some of these definitions that make people less interested in culture as a force for positive economic, spiritual, holistic change.

Mary W Rowe You know, again, we’re back to that porousness. I see lots of questions in the chat about the relationship between cultural venues and athletic venues and of course, a different situation there where the athletes generally are paid well and the artists aren’t necessarily so people get caught up in that piece. But it is … It’s interesting to me that three of you are coming from cities where you have an Olympic legacy. And where we have been able to culturally for whatever, I mean “small c” culturally, we’ve been able to for some reason justify enormous investments in hosting those kinds of international events. And we’re all about to turn our televisions to watch another one. And yet … It has in some cases, you’ve used it in a positive way. We only have a few minutes left. But, Éric, we’ll start with you, because, of course, you have one of the most famous Olympic legacies. But, you know, you’ve been able to leverage it. So as we round the end of the session, I guess the question I would ask each of you to consider is – for the future, what do you think the winning … How’s that for a sports analogy … The winning posture should be for how we get investment into cultural infrastructure. Éric first. And then I’ll go to Natalia and then Sarah and then Phillipa. Go ahead Éric.

Éric Lefebvre I think we mentioned it earlier, we need to be able to face the major issues, the social issues of our cities that are coming up. Sarah mentioned it several times. We need to have a global approach. Oh, we shouldn’t just speak to one clientele, one part of the population, we need to understand all of the population and its use of the city and create spaces for everyone. That’s why we invest so much in public spaces. The fact that we have so much public space available is great for arts and culture, because that allows us to test things, create transition infrastructure, hold events in these spaces to see how the population reacts and what positive impact that has on the population before we delve into major investments. So we need to use the spaces, vacant spaces that we have to propose projects to the population before getting into major investments. That’s a crucial step of the process.

Mary W Rowe I think one of the dilemmas with this conversation is that it’s such a big scale. So … because sometimes something modest can make the difference, right? So quickly to each of you, really just a minute each Natalia, Sarah and then Phillipa, thoughts on what the strategy going forward should be. Natalia you first.

Natalia Vartapetova I think it’s a combination of what Éric just said – demonstrating positive impact across … social impact, economic impact, but also looking at how existing infrastructure can be reused for arts and cultural uses, including all the built legacy of the Olympics.

Mary W Rowe Yes. Sarah?

Sarah G. Stanley Yeah, service. Showing how we can serve, how we serve the cities that we live in.

Mary W Rowe Yeah. Philippa.

Phillipa Simpson Yeah. Agree with everything that’s said. and I’d add to that decentralization, from my perspective, because we are a very capital heavy country. So it’s, you know, pushing out into the rest of … Into the rest of the nation.

Mary W Rowe I would expect the CityTalk chat to explode now with celebrations of calls for decentralization. We wrestle with this too, because, I don’t know what you call them, but we’ve had a history in Canada of mega-projects and so we can marshal a lot of money. And I’m assuming a lot of it is the transaction, the government gets a lot of kudos for a mega project, and they can attract big philanthropic dollars and big corporate dollars. And how do we actually break that up? It’s a huge challenge. As I said, I wish I could hang on with you guys for a lot longer. As you can see, the road trip is in the works here. I would encourage people who haven’t planned their holiday yet, to think about where you might go. Is there a cultural facility that you could visit? Maybe it’s a modest one. Maybe it’s a small one. Maybe it’s a big one. Maybe it’s one with potential. The one thing that we didn’t touch on, and I realize I’ve got a few more minutes. I’m going to ask one more question of all of you. So you have to do a … this is the encore, there’s an encore. People … We haven’t really talked about people. Sarah, you talked about people in saying, don’t differentiate an … Don’t make an artist somebody different. Right? But in terms of – as we look at communities in a sense, in many instances in crisis because there aren’t enough people. Quick thoughts on that … housing I know is one, put some housing nearby. Anything else Éric? Thoughts on that … people?

Éric Lefebvre That’s a good question. Nothing comes to mind quickly, but …

Mary W Rowe Although public space is in many ways the best solution. Because it brings people to you, right? Brings us to each other.

Éric Lefebvre Well, yes, it’s a good way to get people to meet. We want each event to be a meeting opportunity so that different people may understand each other. We need the dialog for the future. We need people to listen to each other, to meet in these central spaces. This will improve their life quality and allow to find solutions for the numerous challenges we’re facing. We need to make these meeting spaces, make people meet, and this will allow us to find tools to improve things.

Mary W Rowe Yeah, I’m going to leave it at that. I’m stuck on the phrase that you offered Phillipa – “always raw” – it came from what word? Where does “raw” come from?

Phillipa Simpson Brut, from Brutalism.

Mary W Rowe Aha! You’ve given us so much to think about. Thank you so much for joining us. A week from today we do another CityTalk on a completely different topic, but, you know, it’s all connected. We’re going to talk about the pressures that historically have been placed quite recently on cities to accept asylum seekers and refugees, and particularly it crystallized last year in key cities and we see it is crystallizing again … What global migration impacts are and how do we actually address that in compassionate and resourceful ways. And it always comes back to … Infrastructure. Do we have the infrastructure to support people in places. So thank you so much for joining us, Natalia, we look forward to watching the index evolve. Éric, wonderful to have you with us, Phillipa, I glad to see from the Barbican. We’re driving some traffic to you from North America, they’re going to come and see you this summer. And Sarah, we look with great expectation … What’s going to continue to happen in Arts Commons in Calgary. I’ve been there a number of times. I’m looking forward to coming back. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks to our translator. And thanks to all the folks that were instrumental in putting the session together. And always thanks to the chat. Thank you for joining us and being part of it, and we’ll post it soon. Thanks, everybody.