Burnaby Arts Council discusses the future of arts in Burnaby

Burnaby Arts Council (BAC) held its annual general meeting for 2024 at Deer Lake Gallery on Sept. 24. Around 30 people attended the meeting, most of them members of the arts council, with some members of the public and City of Burnaby staff members. 

The meeting started at 7pm and continued until past 8pm. Co-chairs of the Burnaby Arts Council (BAC), Maria Anna Parolin and Wendy Cormack, chaired the meeting. 

In August, the BAC announced the closure of Deer Lake Gallery (DLG) until further notice. The Beacon spoke with Parolin, who said the main reason for the gallery’s closure was a loss of funding, a symptom of a wider problem with the arts in general and non-profits losing their funding sources in Canada in recent years.

The gallery’s executive director, Jody Phillips, resigned at the end of July 2024 due to the BAC’s inability to pay her wages. Parolin had also told the Beacon that the BAC was struggling to find volunteers to dedicate their time and skills to being on the council’s board. The arts council currently has vacancies, including one for the treasurer. However, during the meeting, Parolin said she knew of a potential candidate for the position of treasurer, although she did not mention the candidate’s name. 

“We need fundraisers. We need treasurers, we need professionals to be on the board and volunteer their time. And that’s getting more and more difficult,” Parolin told the Beacon. 

During the meeting, Parolin and Cormack provided more details about the BAC’s finances and its loss of funding. The BAC had been receiving funding from the BC Arts Council, but this year, the BC Arts Council reduced its annual grant.

According to the BAC statement of operations, the BAC received $27,454 from the BC Arts Council for the 2023-2024 year, down from $40,000 the previous year. The statement also showed an overall deficit of $71,568. The arts council year begins in the fall and continues until the end of the following summer. 

Cormack and Parolin said the BC Arts Council has also reduced its funding for other municipal arts councils. 

“I think they’re restructuring, and they’re reallocating funds in it, and it’s the bigger pool as well. And they’re giving priority to arts groups and non-profits that have been overlooked in the past as well,” Parolin said of the BC Arts Council.  

The BAC also receives an annual grant of $25,000 from the City of Burnaby, in addition to the use of Deer Lake Gallery, for which the BAC does not pay rent. 

Another issue is the loss of gaming funding, which is due to the way in which gaming grants are allocated. The co-chairs explained that gaming grants must be spent before an organization can apply for new grants. During the pandemic, the council struggled to spend all its gaming funds, but the co-chairs said that this year, the BAC succeeded in spending the grant appropriately and may be able to apply for a grant next year. 

“We had moved on from where we were going to spend it, so it sat in our account for the next year or two, and we weren’t able to apply for 2023. However, in 2023, we did manage to spend that all in the right places and brought the account down to about $900, so going forward, we should be able to apply for this again,” Cormack said. 

Parolin and Cormack said that although the DLG is now closed and they had to cancel several exhibitions, the BAC will hold its annual crafts fair as usual in November. Parolin had told the Beacon that the crafts fair is the BAC’s largest annual fundraising event. 

After the meeting concluded, Parolin and Cormack invited attendees to contribute ideas for the BAC’s future. Board member Bonne Zabolotney had taped sheets of paper with the BAC’s values and strategies as well as ideas for the future. Attendees were encouraged to write their suggestions on Post-it notes and stick them on the wall. 

The meeting ended on a positive note, with the co-chairs and board members expressing their hope to build up the BAC again and find a new way forward for its future. What that future will look like, only time will tell.

This piece was made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.

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