Battling it out over the city's creative future
July 19, 2010
Paul Morse
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/810094
A major public spat has erupted in Hamilton's arts community over a proposed "incubator" project known as the Creative Catalyst.
At stake is whether city council will unlock $500,000 in public funds to get it going or walk away from the project altogether.
And a secondary controversy has also popped up: Who actually "owns" the project concept -- the city or the local arts group that proposed it?
"The Imperial Cotton Centre for the Arts (ICCA) does (own it)," Jeremy Freiburger, executive director of the non-profit arts advocacy group, said last week.
The city will have to decide if it wants to partner in the project, he said. "It's at our discretion to determine who the partners are."
That doesn't sit well with councillors Brad Clark and Bob Bratina, who have publicly questioned why senior economic development bureaucrats recommend the project be taken forward by the ICCA if the city hands over $500,000 on top of $150,000 it already paid a consultant for a feasibility study.
"Should Mr. Freiburger's group be singled out as the sole source for this project or should everyone be eligible for competing?" Clark said. "The ICCA should compete with other credible arts groups for the project."
Ward 2's Bratina is even more blunt.
"Someone has a vision they'd like to exploit and I don't see how that vision works, especially for the costs involved."
Proponents, among them Mayor Fred Eisenberger, say the incubator is vital to help turn Hamilton into a world-class city that is irresistible to desirable "creative industry" talent -- and that could be anything from traditional visual artists and musicians to software developers.
But detractors within the arts community claim the project is a waste of public money and is little more than a shrewd entrepreneur's move to capitalize on current municipal will to support creative industries.
The fireworks started when Freiburger sent an e-mail to city councillors that dismisses opposition from several cultural community leaders and suggests the dissent is a simply the result of the arts community's inherent fractiousness.
That spawned an angry response to councillors from local playwright and University of Guelph professor Sky Gilbert, who accuses Freiburger of freeloading off the good work and reputation of Hamilton's arts community.
Taxpayers have already spent $150,000 for a major study that advises Hamilton to convert a huge iconic downtown building or buildings into a hub for creative industries.
The idea is that if you provide opportunities for creative types of all stripes to work in close proximity to each other, good things will happen, both for those enterprises and for the city as a whole.
"The consultants' report notes that they met with a divided and competitive industry during their interviews in Hamilton," Freiburger said in his e-mail to councillors.
"What you are seeing is that divided nature coming out now that someone, the ICCA, has navigated city hall in a progressive way."
In response, Gilbert urged councillors to spend money directly on needy arts organizations rather than on the ICCA's incubator concept.
"Mr. Freiburger is using the arts community to persuade the City of Hamilton to give him money and power over the arts community when, in fact, he is simply a very ambitious businessman," Gilbert wrote earlier this month.
The key issue in all this is the future of the arts community in Hamilton, Gilbert told The Spectator recently.
Freiburger "is an entrepreneur who has offered himself up as representing the arts, and I have a problem with that."
The Creative Catalyst is about supporting commercial businesses, he said, and Freiburger should not use the arts as an umbrella for doing that.
Such criticisms offend Freiburger, a formally trained theatre artist and musician, who has worked in Hamilton's cultural scene for years.
"They're attacking me and not the project," he said.
"Saying I'm not an artist is completely unfounded ... For someone to say I make my living off leeching off of culture is really offensive."
Particularly frustrating, he said, is that several key catalyst detractors only made their opposition known after several years of extensive consultation within the arts community both by the ICCA and the feasibility study consultants, Freiburger said.
"They only felt negative about it when they saw it succeeding," he said.
While the incubator hub concept received initial unanimous support at city hall, cracks have now appeared on council.
Council at its last meeting decided to table the project and ordered staff to report back with much more detailed information on governance structures, terms of reference and deliverables.
The mayor believes the incubator will energize the creative community, Bratina said, "but how do the dollars come out of that to cover all these upfront costs? It doesn't mean anything, it's token boosterism."
Ward 1 Councillor Brian McHattie says politicians must look beyond internal arts community squabbles and understand the Creative Catalyst for what it is.
"It's not really an arts project -- it's a creative industries project."
The incubator is more about economic development by setting up economically sustainable industries that have arts at the core, he said.
Festival of Friends's Loren Lieberman, a senior leader in the arts scene, says it has become clear each side has some confusion about what the other is saying, and that he will try to bring them closer together.
"I've offered to moderate an arts community meeting, likely in early August, where Jeremy can educate his detractors, and they can educate him."
Would be a good use for the City Centre.
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