Serpent River citizen Jesse Wente appointed Chair of Canada Council for the Arts
By Catherine Murton Stoehr
I met with Jesse Wente for a phone interview in mid-August. At a time when many colonial organizations are trying to reform on the cheap with minimal self-reflection, the big takeaway here is that the Canada Council for the Arts is truly a huge funding body that shows real signs that it, in a phrase used by Mike Restoule of Nipissing First Nation for such occasions, “has come into the teepee.”
What is the Canada Council for the Arts? Can you give us a sense of the scale of the influence and power of the organization?
Sure! The Canada Council for the Arts (CCA) is the largest arts funding body in Canada. In 2021, its budget is $360 million. It funds both artists and institutions: galleries, symphonies, and individuals.
One of the challenges the Council has tried to meet is to bring in people who hadn’t applied before. Some folks who work in our communities don’t think of themselves as artists, but if you are making artwork for whatever reason, if it is your central job or something else, you can absolutely apply!
I would encourage people to try because the new Indigenous programme: Creating, Knowing, and Sharing (CKS), is the result of a rather dramatic restructure of over the last 5 years. The CCA has a much wider breadth of things they fund of events and practices. I would encourage anyone who does art if they think of themselves as artists or not, to apply. There is $18 million for CKS.
It sounds from your statements about the appointment that the Canada Council for the Arts actively pursued you for this position. You’re a pretty straight-ahead critic of Canadian colonialism past and present. Help us understand what’s going on in Ottawa? Is this a few cultural elites who have been persuaded to a different understanding of this place? Do you think it might be a part of a more profound change?
I have had experience of some of that. I am the head of the Indigenous Screen Office announced by the [Minister of Canadian Heritage] and was hired in 2018 as the only employee. The office was created after 20 years of advocacy and founded with an annual budget that was set up to fail. It hasn’t failed; we doubled our budget, we are now dispersing 3 million in COVID-19 relief and have a staff of four.
This is very different. The Canada Council for the Arts is one of the best-funded cultural organizations in the world. This is not a start-up. It would take a remarkable effort on my part to fail, that’s not how it works.
You described your intention at CCA as “harm reduction” and you have already been criticized for it in the Toronto Star by a letter writer who says you should have a more positive approach of “bringing arts to life.” Can you help us understand that? Are you not being “positive”? Feel free to take the long way.
I don’t feel it really necessary to respond to an unknown letter writer in the Star.
When the CCA was founded in 1957, it didn’t recognize Indigenous arts as a thing. They said it was craft or primitive and ineligible for funding. When I talk about Narrative Sovereignty for Indigenous people, it’s in contrast to the Canadian state that has reinforced its own Narrative Sovereignty in how it describes itself, through bodies like the National Film board. If we acknowledge and understand that, we can understand why those institutions can cause harm. If you are excluding groups, you have done harm on day one.
If we fast-forward to 2020, it’s naïve to think these organizations have stopped doing harm.
If we can admit that there is a longstanding disparity between groups and that it is reinforced by institutions, we can then understand why we need to reduce harm.
About “Bringing the arts to life,” I have spent my whole life doing that. But if we “bring arts to life” for some and not all, we will recreate the inequities that already exist. I don’t think that speaks to our Nation’s sense of relationality and I don’t think it lives up to the ideal of the Canadian vision of itself.
I think that is coming from a positive place. I don’t think pointing out these things is negative. It’s me trying to do the actual work to make things better. It’s taken me a long time to get to that understanding.
Sometimes, Indigenous people in these institutions put too much pressure on ourselves to completely change the institution, which isn’t possible, but the goal could be harm reduction while we build our own communities.
If we can’t have discussions if even that is seen as negative? I am plain spoken, I’m not a politician. I answer plainly and sometimes that makes people uncomfortable. My experience with the CCA Board shows not only are they ready and able, they are willing and want to do this. Believe it or not, there are people who think that Canada isn’t perfect and can be improved and it’s ok to want that and ok to work for that.
By taking this position, you are putting yourself in the line of fire from a lot of angles. What is your plan to maintain a good, joyful life for yourself in and through this time? What would feel like support to you from the communities?
(laughs) Apparently, they should read the comment letters to the Star! Support can take many forms and I am grateful for any and all of it.
At this point, once you’ve received a dozen death threats, I’m not sure more really bother you. I have my family and all sorts of joy and sanity in my community and art and all of that will keep me plenty sane.
If I am brutally honest, the term is for five years and when it’s up, I will be 50. Part of me sees that as a good deadline. There are definitely moments when I wish I was doing something that didn’t come with Letters to the Editor and death threats.
Part of what will keep me going is knowing that there will be an end. That gives me a lot of energy because I can see the horizon; I can imagine being able to pass this work on to the next generation.
To explore funding opportunities go to Canada Council for the Arts Creating, Knowing and Sharing or call 1-800-263-5588 and ask to speak to an Indigenous stream (Creating, Knowing, Sharing) programme officer.