CultureBrew.Art: Expanding Access and Strengthening Connection

by Lisa Mackay

Across Canada, arts organizations are working to ensure their creative teams and collaborators better reflect the communities they serve. This can create a challenge for the sector: IBPOC artists are often expected to be visible and available for opportunities, yet many hiring processes still rely heavily on informal and hyper-local networks that tend to be monochromatic.  It was in response to this challenge that Valerie Sing Turner and Anju Singh of Visceral Visions Society began the initiative that became CultureBrew.Art. Both Valerie and Anju are multidisciplinary and racialized women artists who have a broad experience in advocating around intersectional racial equity, and they used this lens to imagine a new way for engagers and opportunity-makers to find IBPOC artists.

The result is a national, searchable online platform encompassing every artistic discipline that connects Indigenous and racialized (IBPOC) artists and arts workers with one another and with opportunity makers from across Canada. As they describe on the website, CultureBrew.Art (CBA) “intends to be a one-stop, systemic intervention designed to disrupt acknowledged systemic biases in the arts and culture ecosystem, by transforming the process by which BIPOC artists are found by engagers. CBA invites participants to deeply consider and to organically learn about intersectionality by providing a space that centres LGBTQ2S+ BIPOC, Deaf BIPOC, visually impaired BIPOC, and BIPOC with disabilities and/or neurodiverse perspectives.”

Protecting the safety of racialized artists was a priority for the developers, and only paid subscribers can access the data base to prevent trolls and online hate. A key feature supporting that connection is the platform’s internal messaging system. Members can contact one another directly without publicly sharing personal contact information.

In conversation, Chris Gatchalian, Community Engagement Producer for CultureBrew.Art, described the platform not simply as a directory, but as a space where relationships begin. “It’s not just about being discovered by organizations,” he said. “It’s about artists being able to connect with each other.” Artists remain accessible while retaining control over how and when they share their contact details.

Those connections have led to concrete outcomes. Projects have been initiated, creative teams assembled, and opportunities circulated through conversations that began on the site. In many cases, relationships formed artist-to-artist before extending outward to producers or organizations.

Joining as an artist is straightforward. Artists self-identify as Indigenous and/or racialized to create a profile. For artists who face barriers related to membership fees or credit card access, the platform provides guidance and accommodation options.

For organizations, CultureBrew.Art functions as a practical recruitment and engagement tool. Through an Engager subscription, companies, festivals, producers, educators, and funders can search a national database and message artists directly. Because artists often work across multiple roles, the platform includes not only performers and creators, but also writers, directors, composers, choreographers, arts managers, producers, designers, and other cultural workers. It can support hiring both on stage, in the studio, and behind the scenes.

The platform currently features more than 640 published profiles nationwide, though only a small portion are based in Alberta. Greater participation from Alberta-based artists would strengthen regional visibility, while more Alberta organizations subscribing as Engagers would broaden access to IBPOC talent locally and nationally. 

As they describe so beautifully on their website, “CBA is positioned to be an indispensable factor in keeping Canadian arts and culture vibrant and powerfully relevant; and in doing so, build intercultural understanding, equitable hiring practices, and meaningful employment opportunities.”

CultureBrew.Art offers a practical way for artists of all disciplines to increase visibility and for organizations to expand their networks, but its strength depends on participation. The more artists and organizations who use it, the more effective it becomes. To help promote more Alberta representation, the Rozsa Foundation will cover the one-time $25 lifetime membership fee for IBPOC artists.

To take advantage of this, follow these steps:

1. Go to culturebrew.art/user/register and create a profile.

2. Go to culturebrew.art/bursary and enter your information. Under “Reason for Bursary Application,” select "I request a credit card exemption, as I cannot or do not wish to provide a credit card number" then also tick "Other" as well, and in the field below that type "Rozsa sponsorship."

Organizations are also encouraged to become subscribers to the site to access artist information. Rates for Engagers are determined by your organization's budget size. More information can be found here: culturebrew.art/engager-rates.

Join culturebrew.art