A message from the CFAT Board of Directors
Dear CFAT Community,
Several weeks ago, a group of active Centre for Art Tapes members were voted onto the board of directors to fill vacant seats and help in our ongoing effort to keep CFAT relevant to the communities it intends to serve. The new mix of fresh energy with the historical knowledge of key, long-serving members has given us momentum to tackle restructuring efforts announced to the membership via e-mail last April. Andrew Coll, Sam Decoste, Angela Glanzmann, James MacSwain, Annalise Prodor, Ann Verrall, and Clare Waque comprise our board. I am also one of these new board members, and I am writing to you from my new role in our organization as the Chair.
With the support and help from staff and members at large, our board has begun casting a critical (but loving!) eye toward relationships among our general membership, committees, staff on the ground, and organization’s governance. We know we have great members. We know we have great programs and programming. We have excellent, knowledgeable, creative, and friendly staff. We have a dedicated Board of Directors who are also active artists. And we have some really great equipment and facilities. But how can we put these elements together to help CFAT realize its incredible potential?
This is why I’m writing to you now. We need everyone’s input–current and former members, as well as the CFAT-curious–to start shaping this organization’s next chapter. How can we better support media artists? How can we better serve artists from historically-underrepresented communities? How can we provide a path toward becoming an artist for those who can’t afford a university degree? How can we improve our organizational accountability to our staff and to the membership as a whole?
In order to find answers to these questions together, we will hold a public meeting on December 12th at 6:30pm, and we encourage you to attend. But we don’t want to wait until then to hear from you! This link will take you to a very brief survey, where you can start sharing your ideas and feedback for CFAT. Any comments and questions you give on this survey will be incorporated into the face-to-face discussion at the meeting. The goal of our face-to-face meeting, ultimately, is to articulate a shared understanding of how CFAT can best focus itself as an organization in order to contribute meaningfully to the development of time-based media art practices and artists.
After all, if you’re an artist who uses electronics, moving images, audio, and pretty much anything time-based and digital to make your work–or if you want to be an artist who does these things–then you’re the reason we exist.
With gratitude and respect,
Becka Barker, Chair
CFAT Board of Directors
