ELAN's 2016 Year in Review

This year over 600 ELAN members and friends attended 7 Schmoozers, 4 workshops, 3 consultations and 1 panel discussion. More than 5,000 people attended Arts Alive! Québec festivities in 6 different communities.

Here is our 2016 year in review:

January

We kicked off the year with the very popular CBC Getting Media Attention Workshop, FREE for ELAN members.

February

Our Board met with Simon Brault of Canada Council for the Arts, bringing your questions and concerns to the federal funding body. Read the results.

March

March marked the release of the results of our Performing Arts Market Access Strategy report, which surveyed 110 performers, arts producers, managers and agents. We also held a hands-on Grant Writing Workshop for ELAN and arts community members. Check out our grant writing resources.

April

A follow-up to our successful 2015 edition, our Arts Market Access Project brought four curators from New York City to tour 16 Quebec artists’ studios and hosted a panel discussion for 90 attendees.

May

We held a public consultation about Quebec’s Cultural Policy, soliciting your feedback to help make positive policy changes. Read the brief.

June

We started the month with the Arts, Community, Education (ACE) Jam, bringing together 50 experts to brainstorm ideas for concrete pilot projects that would unite communities, artists, and educators. The fun continued with our St. Ambroise Fringe Festival Schmoozer.

July

Arts Alive! Québec kicked off with festivities in Quebec City at the Morin Centre.

August

Arts Alive! Québec continued in Knowlton & Huntingdon and we held a Schmoozer in Hudson. ELAN’s AGM + Schmoozer was attended by 80 people at the end of the month.

September

We launched our new visual identity & website thanks to Studio Monument and Commun-IT. We held yet another Schmoozer with the QDF Calendar Launch to celebrate, and Arts Alive! Québec festivities continued in Hudson, Wakefield + the West Island.

October

Our Information Session with CALQ quickly filled up, and over 80 attendees had their granting questions answered by Program Officer Laurent Rozencwajg. Not to mention another CBC Getting Media Attention Workshop and a Grant Writing Workshop.

November

November was the month of briefs and consultations. We attended the CRTC Official Language Minority Consultation at the beginning of the month, held a public consultation on Canadian Content in a Ditigal World, partnered on an information session and consultation with the NFB and submitted briefs for the Department of Canadian Heritage’s quinquennial review of Official Language programs.

Thankfully we had some fun too, co-hosting the first NDG Schmoozer/First Thursday with Notre-Dame-des-Arts.

December

We held the 3rd edition of the McGill Music Mixer with partners the McGill Career and Planning Service and the Schulich School of Music Booking and Ensemble Offices.

We also accompanied the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) to Ottawa for a consultation with senior officials from Canadian Heritage including. Mélanie Joly (Minister of Heritage) and Randy Boissonnault, (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage).

Land Acknowledgement

ELAN is an official minority language organization within a country that recognizes two languages as official. ELAN is located in Tiohtià:ke, the original name for Montreal in Kanien’kéha, the language of the Mohawk—also known as Mooniyang, which is the Anishinaabeg name given to the city by the Algonquin. While we are based in this city, our projects have also taken place in many regions across Quebec.

We acknowledge the colonial origin of English and French in Canada, and recognize that both languages benefit from official status throughout the land. The province that we know as Quebec is an amalgamation of the traditional territories of the Innu and Inuit nations, Algonquian nations, as well as the Mohawk nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Kanien’kéha and Anishinaabemowin are but two of the original languages of this province; Atikamekw, Cree, Inuktitut, and Innu-aimun are also among the many Indigenous languages spoken across Quebec as majority languages, all well before French and English.

ELAN acknowledges the important work being done by First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples to revive the traditional languages of these territories, and their advocacy for the official status of Indigenous languages.