Abstract

The terrain of artist-run culture in Canada and Québec discursively fabricates a network of artist-run production, presentation and distribution centres and collectives in the visual and media arts. Organized 'at a distance' from the state, this field of activity has been represented through depiction and delegation by national and regional representative associations and a significant body of theoretical and historical literature. This study reads cultural studies and social movement theory to examine how this self-governing network and movement of cultural production interacted with and created its own policy apparatuses. The artist-run centre movement announces itself approximately at a mid-point in Canadian cultural policy development which spans fifty years from 1944-1994. The twenty-five year period covered by this thesis thus intersects with a substantial portion of Canadian cultural policy history. This thesis argues that the artist-run movement, in effect, advocated for and produced a hybrid model of aesthetic and social organization. I will further argue that in engaging with the state and its agencies, artists and artist organizations problematized the rights and responsibilities of cultural work and citizenship within a governmental framework.