After its grant request was rejected earlier this year by the city's economic development wing, the Sudbury Arts Council is on a mission to raise awareness of what it does — and of arts in general — at a municipal level.
To that end, the arts council has sent out a survey to all Greater Sudbury city council and mayoral candidates on the arts, and will publish the results prior to the election.
It's also holding a mayoral debate on arts and culture starting at 7 p.m. Oct. 5 at Theatre Cambrian.
“I think we'd just like to put arts and culture on the agenda,” said Sudbury Arts Council president Vicki Gilhula, speaking at the organization's annual general meeting Sept. 8.
“I haven't heard too much about it yet. I've heard about roads. I've heard about job creation.”
She said the Sudbury Arts Council asked for $25,000 from the Greater Sudbury Economic Development Corporation this year to hire a staff person to drive forward its agenda.
But when the corporation announced its 2014-2015 arts and culture grants earlier this summer, Sudbury Arts Council came up empty-handed.
“Unfortunately, we did not secure any funding from the city for 2014/15 because the people on the funding board do not think we do anything,” said Gilhula, also the managing editor of Sudbury Living Magazine, Northern Life's sister publication.
“We are working to change this false perception.”
Sudbury Arts Council, currently a volunteer committee working to develop the city's arts community, has many projects on the go, including finding new exhibition space and hosting monthly Arts After Five musical events.
It also helped to put on the first annual Mayor's Celebration for the Arts, which took place May 1.
The group hasn't given up hope of being able to hire a staff member, and is applying for provincial funding, Gilhula said.
While Sudbury Arts Council and the city are meeting this week to see how they can work together on mutual goals, she said she has to wonder why arts doesn't receive the same support from the municipality as sports.
“We know that the city is involved with SportLink (the Greater Sudbury Sports Council),” she said. “Money was put into that. We wonder why we can't have an Arts Link, and have them support us?”
To learn more about Sudbury Arts Council, visit www.sudburyartscouncil.org.
