Working with Principles of EDI: A Work in Progress

This article summarizes some aspects of how the ELAN ArtistsInspire Grants project works with principles of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). EDI is complex, non-prescriptive and depends on the context of each organization. As such, we continue to develop our understanding of how to meet the needs of our Artists as well as the school communities we serve. It is a work in progress.

A Reflective Shift

At the start of the pandemic in March 2020, the ArtistsInspire Grants (AIG) project came to a halt. We shifted the entire project to an online format, providing professional development and experimentation opportunities to our roster and continued to provide interactive arts and culture experiences to school communities and beyond. As the initial shock of the pandemic began to wear off, the team had some time to reflect on the project. While we were proud of what we had established thus far, and had always made EDI a core value of the project, we recognized that we surely had not reached a great number of incredible teaching Artists from the many different communities within Quebec society. And so began our journey towards a more equitable, diverse and inclusive project.

Having our team attend talks put on by various organizations–such as Concordia’s QUESCREN Project and the Black Community Resource Centre (BCRC), for example–allowed us to examine our own positionalities, and discuss how issues related to systemic inequity in Quebec creates major barriers for some Artists from underrepresented communities. Some of the guiding principles from this process were the following ideas (please note that these are not intended to represent universal experiences, but do provide some useful insight):

  • I feel “othered” in the place where I was born.
  • How long do you have to live somewhere to be considered “from here”?
  • The power dynamic is always there, whether you acknowledge it or not.

Internalizing these ideas, we set out to invite Artists from diverse backgrounds to consider joining our roster of teaching Artists in order to be able to offer Quebec schools rich and culturally relevant experiences.

The Question of Identity

In consultation with ELAN’s Inclusion Committee, we crafted the following optional identity-related question to help us understand the lived experience of interested Artists, which was part of the Artist eligibility form:

“Our challenge in wording a question on identity is that we risk over-simplifying and potentially excluding by providing a pre-formatted list. ELAN ArtEd strives to be an equal opportunity program and values diversity, encouraging applications from all eligible Teaching Artists & Arts organizations. We strongly encourage applications from members of the Government of Canada’s job equity seeking groups (i.e. persons with disabilities, visible minorities, Aboriginal peoples, people from the LGBTQ2S+ community, and newcomers to Canada), and from all groups who experience underrepresentation. While we recognize that intersectionality is complex, we invite you to describe your identity, if you are comfortable doing so.”

Recruitment and Tailored Support

Our recruitment call was sent to our networks and with help from our existing teaching Artists, we recruited, and continue to do so, an incredible array of Artists. At first, phone conversations were the most efficient way to provide individual Artists with an overview of the project and answer any questions. We have since created an orientation video to be watched by eligible Artists, which is followed by a live virtual Q&A session.

In response to a potential need for support, we offered personalized one-on-one coaching sessions to anyone self-identifying as being part of an underrepresented community. These sessions benefitted about a dozen Artists during the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years. While the project was never intended to provide training for emerging Artists or teaching Artists, we recognized that coaching sessions tailored to specific needs contributed to strengthening our teaching Artist community, and instilled confidence in Artists that may have faced barriers.

While it would go against our mission of creating a space that is inclusive and equitable to count how many teaching Artists we have recruited that identify with a community that might be considered underrepresented–this approach risks tokenizing individuals and their lived experience–our team feels that we have made concrete efforts in building a project that represents the diversity of Quebec’s teaching Artist community. We continue to strive for improvement, and remain open to conversations about how we might strengthen our recruitment process and support Artists. For a conversation with us on this subject, please reach out to Guillaume Jabbour at artedcoach@quebec-elan.org. 

Yours,

The ELAN ArtEd Team
Guillaume Jabbour, Barbara von Thaden, Christie Huff, Rain Huff & Louise Campbell