About us
The Multicultural Artists Coalition (MAC-CAM) is a professional arts organization shaped by immigrant, refugee, Indigenous, Black, and POC artists and arts administrators. Through capacity-building workshops, art festivals, research, and advocacy, our programming targets systemic barriers to support our communities in achieving their goals with a larger impact, audience, scale, and visibility.
Our Mandate
We believe that knowledge is the foundation for capacity. Thus, our programs aim to construct a long-term continuous process to empower our community by developing community assets, abilities, and capacities based on the principles of self-determination, self-management, and sustainability.
Core Principles
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Self-determination
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Self-management
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Sustainability
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Participation
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Ownership
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Agency
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Bottom-up planning (Participatory Democracy)
Objectives:
● Increase visibility and participation of newcomers and IBPOC artists in the Ottawa Cultural Sector by organizing festivals, exhibitions, and other public events.
● Decolonize concepts, discipline, practices, and spaces of art. The "official" notion of art has been imposed by power-knowledge institutions, marginalizing cultural practices beyond the European and Euro-American cultures.
● Invite the Ottawa, Ontarian, and Canadian art communities for cultural exchanges, fostering artistic collaborations between artists from diverse cultural backgrounds and Canadian-born artists.
● Our research shows economic barriers as one of the main obstacles that inhibit our communities from achieving their professional goals. Thus, MAC-CAM works to connect to and create paid opportunities in local contexts for newcomers and IBPOC artists.
● Build capacity for newcomers and IBPOC artists who are affected by diverse systemic barriers through workshops, professional development and information sessions.
Internal governance:
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Our board structure works on a volunteer basis.
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Our decision-making process is entirely grass roots under the form of assemblies, and every single member of the Multicultural Artists´ Collective has agency in our decisions making processes.
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There is no fee to become a MAC-CAM member.
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The current board members are Joy Wei (Chair), Deena Alsaweer (Vice-Chair and Secretary), and Kerem Eker (Treasurer).
