General Reflections

The trip gave me the opportunity to reflect on the CarriageWorks approach and its strategic plan. two things come up for me.

The first is that we have had to be much more like a performing arts centre than a centre for the development of contemporary arts. i have put this down to the level of funding being too low, mostly because we have the right approach in our strategic plan. But I do not want to let that be the excuse. I want to investigate how much we can focus on how much we can curate a program of activities that promote the core beliefs and vision of the centre rather than just take everyone hire that comes along. This does not mean a radical shift but rather to see how far we can move towards it given the funding that we do have.

Secondly the strategic plan needs to change slightly to accommodate a new understanding of hybridity and its relationship to what artists and audiences are looking for. Our program actually reflects it more than what is written in the document, but we also do not have enough of a focus on some core principles that I have outlined throughout the blog.

This adjustment to the program does not as I say radically change the direction, or vision but rather looks at them from a different direction. I am hoping that this refocus will actually help us define our work and our direction in the immediate future.

It might even give us a stronger position from which to go looking for sponsorship, and other support.