CQAM’S Role and Vision

In its capacity as Quebec’s sole national media arts service organization, CQAM is mandated by the sector and the association’s funders to act as an aggregator, disseminator and trainer of continuing professional training actions and activities between its individual and organization members, emerging media artists, media arts organizations, cultural human resource councils and funders to ensure an ongoing dynamic between all interested parties. CQAM also has the responsibility to support the efforts of its community in this area and to stimulate the synergy needed to adopt and implant adequate professional media arts development and training policies.

According to the Culture Statistics Program of Statistics Canada, more than 600,000 Canadians work in the cultural labour force. Almost 70% of these individuals hold a university degree. They are twice as likely to be self-employed, and are typically well motivated, entrepreneurial and creative. Cultural workers contribute an estimated $48 billion to the economy. Further, the number of people working in cultural fields has grown at more than twice the rate of the total workforce over the past 20 years. (Source: http://www.culturalhrc.ca/aboutus/index-e.asp)

While 15% of the entire Canadian workforce is self-employed, in the cultural sector, 39% are self-employed. They are creators, artists, writers, actors, musicians, members of film crews, small magazine publishers, directors, editors, curators and museum personnel. They run small businesses and often have to do everything - not only maintaining and improving their cultural skills, but also planning, creating, producing, marketing, accounting, dealing with tax, legal, health and safety matters, developing their own training opportunities and providing their own social benefits. In media arts, a professional artist must master more than 6 skill sets to initiate, produce and disseminate his/her work. As a result, they need a wider range of skills than most employees. (Source: http://www.culturalhrc.ca/aboutus/necessary-e.asp)

Ongoing professional development by professional media artists and cultural workers is an integral component in the success of the media arts sector and contributes to the international recognition of Quebec’s media artists, organizations and works. Access to these workshops on a permanent basis is necessary to maintain leading edge skill sets of both artists and cultural workers/managers and to adequately support the career paths in the sector.

Thanks to the financial support of Emploi-Québec and the Conseil québécois des ressources humaines en culture (CQRHC), CQAM is able to offer an annual program of dedicated media arts workshops on ancillary themes such as human resource /organizational management, copyright and copyright clearance issues, strategic marketing and promotion, etc.