There is still time to share the invitation with your colleagues and register!

Throughthestorm.ca

The 2022 edition of the national media arts gathering Through the Storm will follow a new hybrid format. This iteration is specifically looking to reach out to as many cultural workers and artists working in independent media arts as possible. Invite members of your team or community to participate; we want to hear from all of you!

The in-person portion of the conference will take place on the unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation in Ottawa . This gathering is a co-production between IMAA, MANO, NIMAC and DARC, in collaboration with Asinabka Film and Media Arts Festival.

4 streams → 4 working groups

The confernce is structured around 4 working groups that will meet online before the gathering and will continue to meet during the event, while presenting their work during the daily plenaries.

• Sacrifice as Beginning: Conflict, Justice, Reparations
  Tuesday May 17 at 2pm EST
  Tuesday June 14  at 2pm EST
  Tuesday July 12  at 2pm EST
  
  
• The Exploitation of Informality: Formal Labour Standards – Unions, Guilds, Ombudsperson
  Tuesday May 17 at 2pm EST
  Tuesday June 14  at 2pm EST
  Tuesday July 12  at 2pm EST
  
  
• Economies Beyond Survival: Arts Organisations as Alternative Economic Frameworks
  Thursday May 23 at 2pm EST
  Thursday June 16 at 2pm EST
  Thursday July 14 at 2pm EST
  
  
• After Hubs to Utopian Spaces: Towards Cooperative Housing and Arts Facilities Looking Outward
  Thursday May 19 at 2pm EST
  Thursday June 16 at 2pm EST
  Thursday July 14 at 2pm EST

How to participate

1. Choose a stream

2. Register

3. Attend 3 virtual meetings
*First Workgroup meeting : May 17, 19 or 23, 2022, according to the streams.

4. Attend the in-person national conference, August 10-14, in Ottawa!

Travel Subsidy –   Deadline extended to May 6, 2022

A limited number of travel subsidies will be available for MANO/IMAA member organizations & collectives, and members of NIMAC.

We ask that anyone interested in a travel subsidy to send us an email by Friday, May 6th 2022 outlining:

• why it will be valuable for you to attend the conference,
• your travel plans (including, where you are traveling from and how),
  Paragraph outlining financial need, including:
• the estimated cost of travel,
• other sources of funding/ support,
• and/ or the financial gap this subsidy would fill

Travel subsidy recipients will be notified on Friday, May 20th 2022. The subsidy will be paid on-site, upon submission of receipts to our Conference Coordinator, Jillian Kennedy.

Feel free to contact Jillian anytime at symposium@mano-ramo.ca s if you have any further questions.

May 12, 2022 — Come share and learn!
→ Register on Zoom (Alternative registration methods are also described below)
→ Access the full participation guide here
→ Access all the resources on IMAAsource: Online Media ArtsPresentation Standards

 Context

The Online Media Arts Presentation Standards project is now available!

The sudden surge of new presentation models exposes an urgent need to formalize standards for streaming and other types of online presentation of media art.  This series provides tools and insights to encourage good practice in this regard.

To address these issues, IMAA engaged in a national conversation with media artists, arts service organizations, media arts festivals and independent distributors, galleries and other presenters. This project took place in 2021.

👥 During the meeting

You are invited to actively exchange with your colleagues across Canada.
Be prepared to share your experiences, listen and participate in discussions about online presentation.

This workshop will begin with a brief overview of the documents collected in the Online Media Arts Presentation Standards project. Afterwards, you will be free to join discussion groups depending on the topics you wish to discuss.

We will share contact information with other group members so that this dialogue can continue after the event.

🧩 Discussion Starters

Prior to the meeting, we strongly encourage participants to review the documents of the Online Media Arts Presentation Standards project.

Fair remuneration

What are my organization’s resources and priorities?What are my organization’s mandate, values, and commitments? How will artists be paid? 

Relevant document on this subject:
→ IMAA Fee Schedule

You may wish to discuss using the fee schedule, the application of the guiding principles, the calculation of add-on fees for online presentation, or understanding artists’ and professional fees.

Intellectual Property

How transparent is our relationship with artists and distributors? What information have we communicated to the artists or distributors? Have we informed artists or distributors about how we will use their files? Are we able to support artists’ and distributors’ requests?

Relevant documents on this subject:
→ Intellectual Property and Online Presentation: Guidelines and Resources for the Media Arts Community
→ Contracts Checklist between media arts presenters and artists or copyright holders

You may wish to discuss copyright ownership (between multiple artists, fair dealing or commissions), copyright transfer and licensing, or Indigenous perspectives on intellectual property.

Accessibility

Who is our audience? What are its needs? How can we support the self-determination of the D/deaf and disability arts community? How are we engaging with accessibility? How accessible are we? How accessible is our website?

Relevant documents on this subject:
→ Towards Accessible Online Presentation Models: Introduction and Resources for the Media Arts Community
→ 10 PRINCIPLES OF DISABILITY JUSTICE (a text from SinsInvalid, find IMAA’s new French translation here.)

You may wish to discuss Disability Justice and a critical approach to accessibility, creative accessibility or the proposed guiding principles.

Planning and technical considerations

What is my organization’s capacity? Who will work on this project? How much time do they have? What technical capacity do we have? What are we missing? What do we need? Do we have a data and file management plan in place? Is it up to date?

Relevant documents on this subject:
→ Online Presentation Workflow: Resources for the Media Arts Community
→ Online Presentation Workflow Diagram

You might discuss online presentation that respects the organization’s vision and capabilities, types of online events, tools (quality, interaction, accessibility, etc.), geo-blocking and digital rights management, archiving and documentation, or data use.

🌈 External Facilitators

Would you like to help facilitate? This meeting will bring together many people, but IMAA’s team is small. We may need outside help to ensure that all the focus groups run smoothly.

We are looking for people who know the sector and have facilitation skills, such as the ability to manage time and create an inclusive space for dialogue.

A question at your registration allows you to indicate your interest. You can also write to us (engagement@imaa.ca) to express your interest. 

We will contact the people selected by email to let them know the next steps. A symbolic honorarium of $50 will be offered to external facilitators. 

MEETING DETAILS

Date : May 12th, 2022
Start time according to your time zone:

Pacific Daylight Time (Vancouver): …………..9:00 AM
Mountain Daylight Time (Edmonton): ………10:00 AM
Central Daylight Time (Winnipeg) : ………….11:00 AM
Eastern Daylight Time (Toronto/Montréal): 12:00 PM
Atlantic Daylight Time (Halifax): ……………….1:00 PM
Newfoundland Daylight Time (St. John’s):..1:30 PM
The event should last approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Registration

The roundtable is open to all, but you must register!
→ Follow this link to register directly via the Zoom platform.

If you prefer to register by phone, we invite you to write to us (engagement@imaa.ca) to arrange a telephone meeting.

You can also call us at (514) 522-8240, extension 0. Please leave a message for Marilyne Parent with the following information:

– Your name, email address and city
– Your organization and job title if applicable
– If you require ASL interpretation? (Please let us know by May 5, 2022)
– How well do you know Zoom software (1. Very proficient, 2. Would like help, or 3. I know little or nothing)
– If you need anything else (services, technical considerations, etc.) to make this experience optimal? 
– What topic would you most like to discuss (1. Intellectual property, 2. Compensation, 3. Online accessibility, 4. Technical issues). Please also specify the topics that interest you. (Find details here)
– Do you agree to have your contact information shared with the people attending this workshop? 
– Can you help us facilitate this meeting? (Find details here)

Interpretation services and accessibility

Presentations at this meeting will be in French and English. Participants will be able to join discussion groups in either language.

If you require interpretation services (ASL), please notify us before May 5th. How? Simply register on Zoom, and respond to the accessibility question indicating your needs.

For all other requests or questions, please contact Marilyne Parent.

Local Media Artists and Presenters, please join us for Focus Group discussions organized around the country!

Canadian Artists’ Representation/Le Front des artistes canadiens (CARFAC) and the Independent media Arts Alliance (IMAA) are engaging in a national community consultation process in order to evaluate their respective fee schedules in relation to the needs, practices and activities of the Canadian media arts community. The goal of this community consultation process is to develop a harmonized fee schedule structure for media artists. The consultation began in March with an online survey on the subject of artists’ fees. The online survey is now closed. The next phase of the consultation with the community is a series of in-person focus group sessions held across the country to gather specific input from artists and organizations in the media arts community. These discussions are being held in Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montréal and Halifax between April 7 and 17.

For more information about the process, please contact Emmanuel Madan, IMAA National Director (dir@imaa.ca) or Marcia Lea, CARFAC National Acting Executive Director (marcia@carfac.ca).