Amidst the rise of demands from the cultural sector, rumors of an unlimited general strike are spreading, especially since the adoption by the Union of Artists of a mobilization mandate. But concretely, is an unlimited general strike in the arts community possible? This is one of the questions asked by the participants of the Great Mobilization for the Arts in Quebec (GMAQ) gathering on Saturday.
Sitting in the sun in front of the Darling foundry in Montreal, around thirty artists and arts workers were divided into subgroups to address different issues in the field. Salaries, certainly, but also funding models and ways of justifying the importance of the arts in society. Everything was done with the aim of organizing future effective mobilization actions for the fall.
Édith Brunette, visual artist, author and activist for the artists’ cause was walking between the groups upon the arrival of the Duty. For her, the multidisciplinarity of the artists’ uprising is essential. “Overall, we have the same distress, then the same problems of lack of financing, of precariousness,” she laments.
A focus group was set up to talk about ways to lobby the government. “Can we have an indefinite arts strike? “, asked the participants. “We ask ourselves all kinds of questions like, how can we make ourselves heard? What are the means of visibility? Who are we addressing? », summarized Édith Brunette.
At the end of the ideation day, the results of the conversations could support the general cause. “We want to join our voices to the Common Front for the Arts. The goal is to express what is concretely happening at the organizational level,” explains the author.
Multidisciplinarity in demands
The GMAQ was the organizer of the demonstrations held last spring. If it was the theater community which had started the uprisings, “it quickly became multidisciplinary”, underlines Mme Brunette. “Except that every time Minister Lacombe talks about the spring demonstrations or the dissatisfaction of the arts community, he always talks about the performing arts. It’s as if we [le milieu littéraire] did not exist. »