The Digital Turn

How can we keep art accessible in a time of crisis?

by

The headline from New York Times critic Roberta Smith’s Dec. 9 year-in-review boldly celebrated, “The Best Art Shows of 2021 Were in Galleries.” This time last year, I was reviewing an exhibition I could view only via FaceTime, so I get what she means. As this year progressed, it seemed there was greater hunger for – and elation about – real-life experiences. But the pandemic imbued art workers with the spirit of experimentation and a sense of urgency to ‘make do’ so art could remain accessible during public health orders. A broad range of digital initiatives have been added to our art experiences, some of which are likely here to stay, augmenting and supporting our return to the gallery. 

Accessibility remains a massive issue for curators and programmers across Western Canada, who are questioning how to keep art available during a pandemic and how to serve multiple communities of differing abilities and income levels. They are aware of the challenges digital initiatives pose for people on fixed incomes, as well as the massive, yet invisible carbon footprint of streaming media, and point to a range of diverse considerations that prevent a one-size-fits-all approach to digital access. 

David Leinster, the CEO of Contemporary Calgary, says accessibility is a key value for the gallery but underlines that this term refers not only to physical accessibility but also to financial accessibility as well as accessibility of content. The gallery has embraced a range of digital platforms to keep art open access. 

In mid-2020, Contemporary Calgary, along with other major institutions across the country, including the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto, launched Field Trip: Art Across Canada, an online platform to connect spaces and share resources and new initiatives. The site is an ongoing project that serves as a unified interface to expand online sharing. 

Leinster is optimistic in embracing new platforms that extend his gallery’s offerings to a wider population. He’s enthusiastic about PhileSpace, interactive collections software that prioritizes the visual experience of exhibitions, showcasing high-resolution images of the work alongside artist statements, notes from collectors, and other content that provides deeper context, along with audio image descriptions for increased accessibility. I’ve seen virtual tours in many galleries, but it’s the first time I’ve seen this glossy, navigable platform.

In a gallery survey, 92 per cent of respondents said PhileSpace enhanced their experience, which suggests that supportive online documentation, accompanied by high-resolution digital imagery can create deeper engagement. “The lessons of 2020 are very clear,” says Leinster. “The digital is here to stay, but it’s here to support the art we show.” 

The digital turn this year demonstrates the resilience and adaptability of cultural workers, and the care they are taking to maintain community access. Vanessa Kwan, the program director of Grunt Gallery, an artist-run centre in Vancouver, notes the importance of using digital platforms to facilitate co-learning, and emphasizes captioning as an area for serious focus. 

Kwan works closely with Grunt’s exhibitions manager and accessibility consultant, Kay Slater, an artist who is hard of hearing. At the beginning of the pandemic, Slater pointed out that any digital transition would require an investment in captioning. At the time, online platforms such as Zoom did not include such a feature. 

Kwan acknowledged the learning that captioning required and worked with Slater to share their new-found knowledge in online workshops as they increased their skills. Kwan emphasizes adaptive strategies that begin by recognizing existing knowledge gaps, then sharing through mentorships, teaching school-age children, and translating workshops into both American Sign Language and Mandarin. 

While digital platforms seem to foster ideas of open community across multiple remote channels, questions remain about how to produce meaningful online art experiences. Henry Heng Lu, the executive director and curator of Centre A, a public gallery in Vancouver’s Chinatown, points to the challenges that technology poses for his audience. Centre A is in an underserved area that’s home to much of B.C.’s addictions crisis, as well as an aging community of low-income immigrant seniors. 

Lu says technology can be a barrier for his audience. Few people have access to mobile devices or have high-bandwidth Internet at home. He sees problems with accessibility pivots. “We need to consider why it’s so trendy to think about accessibility,” he says. “We speak about it when we talk about moving things online and being digital, but this should be a sustained commitment that is part of your organization’s priorities.”

Centre A has reflected on how to remain public during a pandemic. This means offering many ways to access information, like QR codes within the gallery, as well as open-access documentation. But Lu says the flow of knowledge cannot be strictly digital. “Humans are sense-based creatures,” he says. “We need embodied knowledge in physical space.” 

Can we gain sense-based knowledge from digital sources? Vancouver’s Laura U. Marks, the founder of the Small File Media Festival, says we can, but it means complicating digital optimism. Digital practices, specifically streaming, have increased sharply during the pandemic – we need distraction from the dull panic of daily life. Marks, an environmental activist and film philosopher at Simon Fraser University, warns that online media are not immaterial and have real material consequences. Streaming media contributes a surprising one per cent of global greenhouse gases, because fossil fuels are required to power data centers, networks and devices. When we stream large files in large quantities, we contribute to the warming of the planet. 

The Small File Media Festival celebrates international videos and moving image artworks that max out at 5 megabits per second. Small file filmmaker Han Pham says her method is to treat the constraint of compression as a collaborator for aesthetic experimentation. Unlike the glossy imagery from Contemporary Calgary’s PhileSpace, the works screened at the festival are grainy and hard to see. But they instigate an activated viewing experience that Marks advocates in her philosophies – the eye must work a little harder for what it sees, and this stimulates a greater sensory connection between the viewer and the film. 

Projects such as the festival can offer speculative fictions, where we use art to imagine alternatives to contemporary dangers. Digital infrastructures can support futurities by offering navigable imaginal spaces. I liked Regina artist Cat Haines’ project, Making a Better World With Minecraft, produced as one of three digital residencies by the Mackenzie Art Gallery in Regina. The Minecraft interface provides an alterable terrain to explore trans identity, as well as creating a world that others can safely augment themselves, making changes in Minecraft that may be closer to what they want to see in real life. 

In my experience, digital life seems to have divided audiences, with both extreme optimism and swelling fatigue for everything online. Attendance was down for the digital panel discussions I’ve participated in this year. Yet, the digital turn is here to stay. Next year may bring fresh pivots that adopt moderated practices, ones I hope will consider a wide range of accessibility needs. We need to consider people’s different identities, income levels and infrastructure, as well as environmental costs and digital exhaustion. ■  

PS: Worried you missed something? See previous Galleries West stories here or sign up for our free biweekly newsletter.