Montréal Creative Spaces: The CAM in action

At the Conseil des arts de Montréal, we firmly believe that our city’s artistic vitality is directly linked to the conditions in which artists create. It is crucial that we take action and work together to ensure artists have environments conducive to their artistic development, with affordable and suitable creative spaces.

Since 2019, the Conseil has been actively assisting the City of Montréal with its action plan for artists’ studios. In 2023, we set up a think tank in cooperation with Power Corporation of Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts.

These efforts aim to find innovative and concrete solutions by working hand-in-hand with the arts community and various partners, as well as with other stakeholders from sectors such as the social economy, non-profit real estate, philanthropy and government, both here and elsewhere in the country.

Ever attentive to the needs of artists, the CAM will continue to mobilize and secure the expertise needed to identify innovative avenues and new models that can strengthen our cultural ecosystem, which is so vital to Montréal.

This document reviews the process and stages of the Montréal innovation lab for artistic creation spaces, launched by the Conseil des arts de Montréal in partnership with the City of Montréal’s Service de la culture, with financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts and Power Corporation of Canada.

This phase provided personalized coaching based on an innovative and collaborative approach involving partners from various sectors with a wide range of expertise, with the goal of helping project teams turn their ideas into tangible, foundational projects. The two-day workshop was held last February at the Maison du Conseil.

With the aim of stimulating collective thinking geared to the emergence of solutions, L’ILOT hosted this participatory ideation day in October 2023 at the Maison du Conseil. Stakeholders from the cultural milieu and supporting ecosystem came together to take part in workshops as well as a panel featuring the following organizations: Studio 303, the Monastère, Groupe CDH, the Société de développement Angus, the Fiducie du chantier de l’économie sociale and the Plateau-Mont-Royal urban planning department.

This document is a review of the second edition of the support program for the development of studio property projects by technical resource groups.

• Number of studios supported this edition: 471 for a total of $623,828.59
• Total number of workshops supported for the five editions: 2,169
• Total amount of grants for the five editions: $2,892,392.54

• Number of organizations supported for this edition: 7
• Total number of organizations supported for the three editions: 19
• Of the 19 projects, four acquisitions were completed and one offer to purchase was accepted.

Moderated by cultural planning consultant Mélanie Courtois in the presence of Ericka Alneus, who is responsible for culture and heritage at the City of Montréal, the event provided an opportunity to hear from cultural property funders and to share participants’ experiences regarding different approaches to launching cultural property projects, the challenges encountered and the levers inherent in these approaches.

This guide was developed for the initiators of cultural property projects, including cultural organizations, artists’ collectives, technical resource groups and any other organizations interested in carrying out projects of this kind in Montréal.

Number of studios supported this edition: 421 for a total of $572,502.55.

Number of organizations supported this edition: 8.

This document reviews the first edition of the support program for the implementation of artist’s studio property projects by technical resource groups.

Number of studios supported this edition: 424 for a total of $568,623.03.

This program offers organizations several months’ support from a Montréal-based technical resource group (GRT) for cultural property projects. Number of organizations supported in this edition: 4.

Number of studios supported this year: 405 for a total of $532,421.37.

Designed to assist artists with the studio rental process, these videos accompany the guide of the same name and cover the many legal aspects involved.

Designed to assist artists with the studio rental process by covering the many legal aspects inherent in the process, this guide provides useful pointers for negotiating a commercial lease, signing a residential lease, selling the building where a studio is located or carrying out work in the studio.

This grant program provides invaluable financial assistance to artists, enabling them to work in spaces suited to their artistic needs. Number of studios supported in this edition: 448 for a total of $595,017.