Compiling that archive represents a huge amount of research, adds Heyen-Dubé, and was very revealing. For instance, early editions of the festival mostly took place on campus and were quite representative of all the fine arts departments.
“There used to be so much theatre, music, dance — everything. Then, maybe 10 years ago, the festival started to go mostly to the visual arts. I think when the festival moved outside Concordia, it became harder to find performance spaces. This year, we’re very excited to go back to how it was.”
Bordeleau has hunted down past organizers to discover where they have ended up. It turns out that working at Art Matters is a solid training ground for artists, curators and other culture sector workers.
“I know lots of past coordinators work in galleries now,” Heyen-Dubé says.
“Before, I looked at job applications and said to myself, ‘Oh god, I don’t know how to do this.’ But now that I’ve done the work here, I think, ‘I can do this!’ It’s so great.”
The 20th Art Matters Festival runs February 29 to March 23. Check out the full schedule.
