This page is part of the archival documents of the symposium, Toronto Cultural Policy and Plans 1974 – 2008: Examining the Legacy held in Toronto on October 24, 2008.
DAVID P. SILCOX, C.M., B.A., M.A., F.R.S.A., L.L.D.
After successful careers in government, education, and the arts, David is now the President of Sotheby’s Canada and a Senior Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto. Among the posts Silcox has held are: Senior Arts Officer, Canada Council (1965-1970), Associate Dean and Associate Professor, Faculty of Fine Arts, York University (1970-1977), Director of Cultural Affairs, Metropolitan Toronto, following his report that established the department (1974-1982), Assistant Deputy Minister for Culture, Department of Communications, Government of Canada (1983-1985), Deputy Minister of Culture and Communications for the Province of Ontario (1986 – 1991), and Director, University of Toronto Art Centre. Author and critic, David’s books include Painting Place, The Life and Work of David B. Milne, the Catalogue Raisonné of Milne’s paintings, Christopher Pratt (with Merike Weiler), The Silence and The Storm (with the late Harold Town), and The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson, the most comprehensive book yet on these famous painters.
David served both as a member of the Board and as Chairman of the Canadian Film Development Corporation, now Telefilm Canada, (1972-1983). He has served on numerous boards and commissions, including the Stratford Shakespearean Festival, National Film Board, Massey and Roy Thomson Halls, Banff School of Fine Arts, Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Film Festival, Toronto Theatre Festival, Toronto International Festival and the Canadian Museum of Broadcasting. He is currently on the boards of the Gardiner Museum, the Royal Conservatory of Music, and Victoria University, U of T. In 2007, David was inducted into the Order of Canada and honoured with the Governor General’s Award for his outstanding contribution to the visual arts.
TOM HENDRY
Tom is a co-founder of Manitoba Theater Centre, Banff Playwrights Colony, Toronto Free Theatre, Playwrights Canada Press, Playwrights Guild of Canada and Arts and the Cities. He is a playwright whose work has been seen at Stratford, Manitoba Theatre Centre, Off-Broadway, across Canada at various theatres from Halifax to Victoria, and on CBC-Radio and CBC-TV. From 1983 to 1995 he served as Policy Director of Toronto Arts Council for whom he prepared in 1983 a pioneering study of the City’s arts/culture community as a foundation for a ten-year arts/cultural policy roadmap Cultural Capital: The Care and Feeding of Toronto’s Artistic Assets highlighting the strategic importance of annually increasing municipal grants support of the resident professional arts community with this support being administered by a knowledgeable independent arts council capable, through decision-making participation in its governance, of drawing and acting upon the experience and ambitions of the Toronto arts/culture community. In 1989 he was chair and chief report writer for a federal task force looking into the future of the National Arts Centre, which produced the report Accent on Access.
Throughout his life Tom has been a visionary strategist in the pursuit of better opportunities for Canadian artists. His bold work as a playwright, theatre administrator and arts activist continues to have a meaningful impact on the Canadian arts community, and the way this country creates and values art. Hendry has helped to define and develop Canadian theatre through his writing and his support of Canadian works and premieres. In addition, Hendry has developed policy and institutions that support the arts. His efforts as co-founder of Arts and the Cities and as Policy Director of the Toronto Arts Council (1984-1995) have contributed to dramatic increases in municipal spending on the arts and improved equal access to these benefits. In recognition of his work, Tom received the 2008 Toronto Arts Council Foundation William Kilbourn Award for the Celebration of Toronto’s Cultural Life
KATHLEEN SHARPE
Kathleen Sharpe is a senior manager and administrator in government and the cultural sector. She has been Executive Director of the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund since its inception in 1999. The Fund, a unique program established to support cultural tourism attractions through a combination of grants and loans, has committed almost $32 million to almost 300 events around the Province. Prior to OCAF, Kathleen was Director of the Culture Division of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, a post she held from 1991 until amalgamation of the municipality into the City of Toronto in 1998. Kathleen’s leadership led to the adoption by Metro Council of its first comprehensive cultural policy, Metro’s Culture Plan, in 1994. She managed the transition of cultural programs and staff of 150 during the changeover from Metro to the new amalgamated City of Toronto. Kathleen has also held management positions at the Ontario College of Art and Design and The Banff Centre. Kathleen is president of SharpeCulture, volunteer chair of Toronto Artscape Inc. and vice president of the Canadian Conference of the Arts.
RITA DAVIES
Rita is the Executive Director of the City’s of Toronto’s Culture Division. From 1984 to 1999, she served as Executive Director of the Toronto Arts Council (TAC), where she oversaw the growth of the City of Toronto’s grants budget from $250,000 to almost $5 million and helped to establish the Toronto Arts Council Foundation and Toronto Artscape. At the TAC Davies worked with Tom Hendry on his seminal 1984 Cultural Capital: The Care and Feeding of Toronto’s Artistic Assets. She commissioned and oversaw the production of a number of other reports such as: No Vacancy (which resulted in the establishment of Toronto Artscape) and Cultural Equity. At the City of Toronto, Rita Davies commissioned the Culture Plan for the Creative City (2003), a ten-year plan to position Toronto as a world culture capital. She has also overseen the creation of the Waterfront Culture Plan, the Imagine Toronto: Strategies for a Creative City report and the recent Creative City Planning Framework. Currently, Rita Davies is developing plans for a new Museum of Toronto to be situated on Toronto’s waterfront.
KEVIN DOWLER
Kevin Dowler is an Associate Professor in the Communication Studies Program and the Graduate Programme in Communication and Culture at York University. He has published on cultural and arts policy at the federal level, and most recently on culture planning in municipalities. He is currently in the planning stages of a monograph on municipal cultural policies, arising from SSHRC funded research conducted with Dr. Alan Blum of York University, under the auspices of the Culture of Cities Centre in Toronto. In addition to this work, Kevin is also conducting research on media and catastrophe under a CIHR team grant at the Centre. Along with academic research and teaching, Kevin has had own video work has been shown internationally in a number of group shows, and he has worked as an audio recordist, sound editor, and music composer for a variety of video and experimental film artists, as well as a past director of the S.A.W. Video Co-op in Ottawa. He has also worked as a music composer on a wide range of independent documentary and commercial television productions.
LILLIAN ALLEN
Lillian is an award winning and internationally renowned poet and writer. As one of its lead originators, she has specialized in the writing and performing of dub poetry. Lillian has won Juno awards for her recordings ‘Revolutionary Tea Party’ (1986) and ‘Conditions Critical’ (1988). She has also worked in film, both as a featured artist (Revolution from de Beat, 1995; Unnatural Causes, 1989; Rhythm and Hardtimes, 1987) and as co-producer and co-director of ‘Blak.. Wi Blakk…’ (1994), a film on Jamaican dub Poet Mutabaruka. The instigator, co-producer and host of WORDBEAT, CBC’s new show on poetry and the spoken word, she is Professor of Creative Writing at the Ontario College of Art and Design.
A leading expert on cultural diversity and culture in Canada, Lillian has been a consultant and advisor to all levels of government, and to institutions and community groups. She has initiated and facilitated the establishment of organizations in various culturally diverse communities, and has worked within established organizations to create access and change. She is a past member of the Racial Equity Advisory of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Experts Advisory on the International Cultural Diversity Agenda, the Sectoral Commission on Culture and Information of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO.
Lillian’s honours include the Margo Bindhardt Award, City of Toronto & the Toronto Arts Council Fdn., 1998; Foremother of Canadian Poetry, League of Canadian Poets, 1992; Ontario Volunteer Service Award, 1989; Outstanding Contribution to the Arts Award, National Congress of Black Women, 1987; 1988 Ms. Magazine Landmark Album of the Last 20 Years, for Revolutionary Tea Party.
ELENA BIRD
Cultural Affairs Officer, City of Toronto, Cultural Affairs
Elena is dedicated to enhancing the cultural life of the city. She has recently returned to Toronto upon completing a M.A. in Cultural Economics and Cultural Entrepreneurship at Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Before this she studied Arts Management at the University of Toronto (1998-2003) and Economics at Ryerson University (2005-2006). Elena has worked with City of Toronto Cultural Affairs since 2002 on cultural development projects including the Culture Plan for the Creative City, the follow-up Progress Report I and II and the Creative City Planning Framework. She has served on the board of artist-run organizations YYZ Artists’ Outlet a centre for contemporary visual art, and Pleasure Dome a collective dedicated to the presentation of experimental film and video in Toronto.
PAT BRADLEY
Pat is Theatre Officer at the Ontario Arts Council and chair of the board of the new national arts database, CADAC (Canadian Arts Data/Données sur les arts au Canada). She has managed national arts service organizations (PACT and PWAC), and worked in policy and program development and delivery municipally and provincially (OAC, Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, Ontario Ministry of Culture). She worked, first as a staff member and later as an advisory committee member, on the 1994 policy document Metro’s Culture Plan: Redefining Our Cultural Framework: A Culture Plan for the Metro Toronto Government. A graduate of Schulich’s Arts and Media MBA program, her publications include The Status of Women in Theatre – The Ontario Experience and studies of Ontario’s visual/media arts and dance sectors. A founder of ArtsVote in Toronto, she also served on the boards of Buddies in Bad Times, the Small Theatre Administrative Facility, Arts York and is a past president of the Canadian Conference of the Arts.
BILLIE BRIDGMAN
Billie started her career as a classical singer and over several decades became known as a specialist in contemporary Canadian music. As Artistic Director of both COMUS Music Theatre and the Guelph Spring Festival she championed new Canadian operas commissioning, producing and directing more than a dozen new works.
Her career also encompassed directing major fundraising campaigns, such as the Canada Pavilion (Expo ’86) and the University of Toronto Bora Laskin Law Library, as well as teaching and directing for almost a decade as a member of the faculty of the Banff School of Fine Arts. As the first full time Executive Director of Artscape (1990 – 1995), Ms. Bridgman developed both the model for developing artists’ work and live/work space, as well as almost 100,000 sq. ft. of the real thing. Six years with the Bank of Montreal’s IT subsidiary CEBRA, as a Director of Project Management and of the Bank’s first ISO Quality System, offered valuable experience in the corporate world. From 2005 – 2007 Ms Bridgman was the President and CEO of the Council for Business and the Arts where she developed several highly successful new programs – ArtsVest, the BoardGame and SpeedDating with the Arts – as active and productive new intersection points between business and the arts. Ms. Bridgman is currently the Executive Vice President of Toronto Artscape.
SUSAN CREAN
Susan Crean is an award-winning writer, editor, and cultural critic whose books include Who’s Afraid of Canadian Culture? (1976), Grace Hartman — a Woman for her Time (1995), and Two Nations/Deux pays pour vivre (with Marcel Rioux, 1980/1982). Her most recent book, The Laughing One — a Journey to Emily Carr (2001) was nominated for a Governor General’s Award for Literature in 2001, and won the 2002 Hubert Evans Prize for Non-fiction in British Columbia.
Crean was part of the Mayor’s Task Force on Cultural Policy in 1973/4 that recommended the establishment of the Toronto Arts Council, and was involved with the TAC in it early years serving on the Literary Committee in 1985-88. As an expert on cultural policy and copyright, she has advised governments and community groups, serving on many boards and committees including the Minister’s Advisory Committee on the Status of the Artist in British Columbia in 1993-94.
She is a former chair of the Writers’ Union of Canada (1991/2) and a founding co-chair of the Creators’ Rights Alliance/Alliance pour les droits des créateurs which represents the country’s 140,000 creators on international issues. She conceived and organized the groundbreaking “unconference” called CopyCamp about art, technology and the law that was first held in Toronto 2006 and repeated last Spring. CopyCamp has succeeded in bringing creators together from across generational and digital divides, to discuss the solutions for artists as both users and creators of copyright material.
Crean has had several academic appointments. She was the first Maclean-Hunter Chair in Creative Non-Fiction at the University of British Columbia, and she taught in the Journalism School at Ryerson University between 2000-2007. In 2007 she was awarded a Chalmers Fellowship.
MARY LOU FALLIS
Mary Lou Fallis is an opera singer, writer, university teacher, broadcaster and producer. Last year she received a Gemini Award for a production called “Bathroom Divas: So You Want To Be An Opera Star?”, broadcast on BRAVO! For 6 years she was on the Board of the Toronto Arts Council and is now a board member of the Laidlaw Foundation.
SHARON FERNANDEZ
Sharon Fernandez is a grassroots activist, artist and institutional change strategist with over twenty-five years’ practical experience in helping to transform cultural organizations in the public and voluntary sector. Her area of expertise includes cultural policy, democratic reform, employment equity and diversity training, human rights and cultural diversity. As a result of her proactive leadership she has garnered a reputation nationally for the substantive and sustained impacts of her work in the integration of cultural diversity in the arts sector. And has received several awards and recognitions including the Canadian Heritage Deputy Minister’s Award (2003), the Secretary of State Multiculturalism), Minister’s Certificate of Recognition (2003) and the South Asian Visual Arts Collective 10th Anniversary Award (2004).
Currently she is Senior Research Liaison for two national organizations: The Alliance of Sector Councils, a coalition of councils from 30 sectors of the economy which address present and future labour market issues and The Canadian Council on Learning. As well she is principal of Creative Policy Consulting and in 2008 worked with the City of Ottawa Cultural Services Division, Ontario College of Art and Design, the Canada Council for the Arts and Cultural Pluralism in the Arts at U of T, Scarborough Campus. From 1996 to 2003 Sharon was the Cultural Equity Coordinator at the Canada Council for the Arts.
Additionally, Sharon has presented conference papers and written journal articles for a number of publications on cultural diversity, multiculturalism and equity in Canadian society. In July 2008 she was invited by the Arts Council of Ireland and IETM to present her paper on: “Cultural Diversity: A Canadian Model, Canadian Initiatives in the Development and Support of Cultural Diversity in the Arts” as part of the European Union’s Year of Intercultural Dialogue.
DANNY GROSSMAN
Dancer and choreographer, Danny Grossman joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company in New York in 1963. In 1973, at the invitation of David Earle, he moved to Toronto to join Toronto Dance Theatre, working as a guest artist and on faculty; the following year he also became a faculty member at York University. In 1977 he created the Danny Grossman Dance Company. He has created a repertoire of more than 40 works, touring numerous times across Canada and internationally. His choreography has been in the repertoire of Toronto Dance Theatre, The Paris Opera Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and The National Ballet of Canada and has also been performed by modern dance training institutions such as Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, New York State Summer School of the Arts, York University, Adelphi University (Long Island), School of Toronto Dance Theatre, Brock University and DanceEast (Moncton).
Danny has been the recipient of the Dora Mavor Moore Award, the Jean A. Chalmers Award, The Dance Ontario Award, The Toronto Arts Council Foundation’s William Kilbourn Lifetime Achievement Award, and Muriel Sherrin Award. He continues in his role as adjunct Professor in the Department of Dance at York University.
In 2008, the company embarked on an exciting new initiative, the Danny Grossman Dance Institute, as a means of preserving, reconstructing, and licensing Mr. Grossman’s remarkable repertoire and thus enabling conservatories, colleges, universities, and professional repertory companies to benefit from the archive of his work.
MICHAEL HOLLINGSWORTH
Michael Hollingsworth is one of the Artistic Co-Directors of VideoCabaret. He has worked in the Toronto Theatre scene since 1970. Mister Hollingsworth is a six time Dora winner for writing, directing and co-producing his epic play cycle THE HISTORY OF THE VILLAGE OF THE SMALL HUTS.
CLAIRE HOPKINSON
Prior to her appointment as Executive Director of Toronto Arts Council, where she’s been for 3 years now, Claire spent approximately 25 years commissioning, developing and producing new works of opera and music theatre. In so doing she’s been instrumental in moving contemporary opera from the very outskirts of the field to the centre. Passionate then as she is now about the potential of Canadian artists to tell their own stories, she invested considerable time and energy into getting Canadian works onto international stages. Her evolution into arts funder – from arts producer – was a logical progression from her volunteer advocacy work as Founding Chair of Opera.ca, Vice Chair of Opera America, and co-founder and President of Creative Trust. In the process she has become committed to the value of developing partnerships and collaboration to further the work of artists in innovative environments. Much of the impetus for Claire’s interest in cultural policy has been to support the growth of creative arts organizations. In May of 2001, Ms. Hopkinson won the national M. Joan Chalmers Award for Arts Administration in recognition of her contribution to Tapestry New Opera Works and the arts in Canada. In 2006 she was recognized by Theatre Ontario with the Sandra Tulloch Award for Innovation in the Arts.
TIM JONES
Tim Jones is committed to building a world that engages art, culture and creativity as catalysts for community transformation, sustainability, prosperity and livability. Under Tim’s direction since 1998, Artscape has grown from a Toronto-based affordable space provider into an international leader in culture-led regeneration and city-building through the arts. In 2008, Artscape will work on 25 projects, programs and strategies in Canada and abroad that aim to unlock the creative potential of people and places.
Before joining Artscape, Tim, created and managed the Canada Council for the Arts Flying Squad Program to provide organizational development grants to professional theatre companies. He has been an influential figure in the development of Toronto’s cultural scene. He was a founder and co-Chair of ArtsVote, the municipal arts advocacy movement largely credited with Toronto Mayor Barbara Hall’s surprise election victory in 1994. He developed the first municipally owned gay and lesbian theatre facility for Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and is Past President of Toronto Theatre Alliance.
LEWIS KAYE
Lewis is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in the Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture at York and Ryerson Universities in Toronto, where his dissertation explores the social and spatial relations of mobile sound technology. As a graduate student he has maintained a wide range of research interests, studying questions of intellectual property in a digital age, the social practice of telecommunications, interactivity and media art, the political economy of communication, and the history and development of cultural policy in Canada. Lewis is also a practicing sound artist whose work explores the aesthetics of space and multimedia performance. His mobile sound project, You Are Here, was commissioned as the official MP3 audio guide for Toronto’s first Nuit Blanche in 2006. Formerly the Access Coordinator at the InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre in Toronto, he has for the last eight years worked as a freelance media art consultant and technician.
IAN MURRAY
Ian Murray is a multi-media artist whose work has been shown and collected by many major galleries and museums and broadcast internationally since 1969. Murray served as Post-Production Director and Vancouver Video Director for the Canadian Pavilion at Expo ’86 and has directed and edited many media works for artists, arts organizations, corporations and governmental agencies. In 1989, Murray created the “Media Arts Database”, an on-line computer database of all Ontario non-profit/governmental resources for artists and organizations working with contemporary media. Murray is an active member of a number of artists’ groups in the Second Life Virtual World where he is currently designing a new virtual campus for the Ontario College of Art and Design.
Murray, who has lived in Toronto since 1977, is active in community artistic organizations, particularly those involved in community media access. He has served on a number of boards of directors including Art Metropole, A Space (Chair), Canadian Filmmaker’s Distribution Centre, Fine Art Broadcast Service (Chair), Trinity Square Video (Chair) and Charles Street Video, Toronto; and Native Earthtones, Thunder Bay among others. A member of the Board of Governors of the Toronto Arts Council from 1985 to 1992, he also served as Co-Chairman of their Visual Arts and Media Arts Committees and sat on the Council’s Loan, Cultural Facilities, Strategic Planning and Priorities & Planning Committees among others. He was a member of the Toronto City Plan Cultural Facilities Policy Working Group (1990 – 1992).
TERRY NICHOLSON
With over two decades of professional life in the cultural sector, Terry Nicholson has been Manager of Cultural Affairs in City of Toronto Culture since April 2000. Cultural Affairs has responsibility for the City’s cultural asset management including capital projects; cultural development projects for the adaptive reuse of major heritage structures; cultural policy, research and strategic partnerships (including grants of $4 million to Major Cultural Organizations) and the City’s public art collection. Terry joined the Metro Cultural Affairs Division in 1990 where he was responsible for major public art projects after having served for 10 years as the Director of the Gallery and Media Centre at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough Campus.
Among his academic achievements are an MBA in Arts Administration from York University and an MA in History from the University of Toronto.
JANE PERDUE
Jane Perdue has worked full time for the City of Toronto since 1991 as the Public Art Coordinator, Urban Design Section, City Planning. Her responsibilities include City of Toronto public art policy development; identification of public art opportunities on public and private lands; approval and implementation of private developer percent for public art projects; and, the administration of the Toronto Public Art Commission (TPAC) a citizen volunteer group. As the City Planning representative, Ms. Perdue has been responsible for the approval process and implementation of over 100 public art installations on Toronto’s publicly and privately-owned lands.
Ms. Perdue has been invited member onto selection juries such as the public art commissions at the GTAA Pearson Airport; the City of Winnipeg’s urban design competition “City Crossings” and the Roy McMurtry Sculpture Gardens of Justice. Ms. Perdue has served on a number of boards which currently includes the Art Gallery of Ontario Board of Trustees. Ms. Perdue has BA, Honours, Art History, York University, (1978) and is a full member with the Ontario Professional Planning Institute and the Canadian Institute of Planners.
DIANE PUGEN
Diane is a widely exhibited Visual artist, curator, writer, activist, educator, and Professor in Faculty of Art at the Ontario College of Art and Design. Pugen is a past Spokesperson for CARFAC Ontario and sat on the boards of the CARFAC National Council and National CARFAC Copyright committee working on the CARFAC positions on the implementation of the copyright legislation. She also co-authored with April Hickox, an addendum regarding visual arts for the copyright legislation of 1988. She also spent 6 years as board member of the Toronto Arts Council co-chairing the Visual and Media Arts Committee, where she played a role in the development of committee structure that is in use by that funding body today and also in initiating the Grants to Individual Artists program that was implemented during her tenure, providing grants to visual artists and writers. Pugen also strenuously championed the need for “cultural diversity” to be an integral part of the TAC structure. Concurrently she was a founding member of the board of Toronto ARTSCAPE. Prior to her involvement on the TAC board Pugen was involved in many community consultation held for the city of Toronto, and she led a committee of visual artists run galleries and organizations in a critique of the “Cultural Capital” report written by Tom Hendry for the city of Toronto. Diane has been involved in Artist run Galleries and was a founding member of Workscene Gallery, and Workscene magazine. She has spent many years on the board of the Association for Native Development in the Performing and Visual Arts where she remains a consultant and is a founding member and Treasurer on the board of the Centre for Indigenous Theatre in Toronto.
GERALD S. SMITH
For thirty five years, Jerry was active at Humber College and beyond, as a trainer, educator and consultant. In addition to his faculty position as Program Director for Humber’s School of Creative and Performing Arts, Jerry has established programs at all levels, including the professional theatre training program at Humber College, as well as the college’s programs (full time and part time) in Arts Administration/Cultural Management and Community Arts Development. Jerry’s experience includes a wide range of work on boards of directors; (Past President of Theatre Ontario, the Association of Cultural Executives, and the Canadian Association of Arts Administration Educators, and President of Lakeshore Arts, Community Arts Ontario, Chair of the Brass in the Grass Music Festival, and Chair of the Advisory Committee for the Assembly Hall. He was selected as a Volunteer of the Year in the City of Toronto.
As a freelance consultant, Jerry has carried out feasibility studies and program reviews, facilitated numerous community and public consultations, and delivered a series of workshops in the areas of Board Development and Leadership, Strategic Planning, Marketing, Fundraising and Sponsorship.
LISA STEELE AND KIM TOMCZAK
Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak have worked exclusively in collaboration since 1983, producing videotapes, performances and photo/text works. Legal Memory (1992), their first feature-length work, has been shown in a number of film festivals since its release including: The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Festival, the Festival Internazionale Cinema Giovani (Turin, Italy), the Toronto Festival of Festivals and broadcast on TVOntario.
In 1996, their work THE BLOOD RECORDS: written and annotated, received a world premiere at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and toured with a bi-lingual catalogue published by The Oakville Galleries. Their installation work We’re Getting Younger All the Time has shown at the London Institute and The City of York Public Gallery (U.K.) and at Wharf Centre d’art Contemporain de Basse-Normandie, France and the Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, as part of their exhibition “…before I wake”.
Steele and Tomczak have received numerous grants and awards including the Bell Canada prize for excellence in Video Art (administered by the Canada Council for the Arts), the Peter Herndorff award for Media Arts through the Toronto Arts Awards, and in 2005, a Governor General’s Award for lifetime achievement in Visual & Media Arts.
In 2007, they were awarded one of the commissions for the large outdoor advertising board at Toronto Life Square, producing 31 short portraits of Torontonians as part of their view of the city called Love Squared. They are co-founders of Vtape, a Toronto media arts centre and teach at the University of Toronto where Steele is the Associate Chair of the Department of Art. In 2007-8, they are invited guests at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany.
SUSAN WRIGHT
Susan is Director of Operations of Toronto Arts Council. She has worked in Toronto’s arts community for over 25 years for a variety of performing arts organizations and agencies. She was General Manager of Toronto Artscape during the 1990s where she gained first hand knowledge of artists’ space issues. Since joining TAC in 2000, Susan has worked in arts policy, research and management but is most interested and committed to working as an advocate for artists among Toronto City Councilors.
JOYCE ZEMANS, C.M.
Senior Scholar and University Professor Emerita, York University, Toronto
An art historian and curator, Joyce is the director of the MBA Program in Arts and Media Administration in the Schulich School of Business at York University. She has served as the Director of the Canada Council (1988-1992) and Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at York University (1985-88) and held the Robarts Chair in Canadian Studies (1995-96). Joyce currently serves as a member of the advisory boards of the Toronto Arts Council, the Creative Trust and the steering group for the Centre of Expertise on Culture and Communities (Simon Fraser University). She was a member of Metro Toronto’s first Public Art Advisory Committee and has served on several Metro Toronto and Toronto cultural advisory committees over the years, including the Cultural Reference Group of the City of Toronto’s Planning Committee, during the transition to the amalgamation. A member of the Order of Canada, she holds honorary doctorates from the University of Waterloo and the Nova College of Art and Design, and is an Honorary Fellow of the Ontario College of Art and Design. Joyce’s research focuses on cultural policy with specific reference to the Canadian experience and international comparative cultural policy.