About
Generator is a mentoring, teaching, and innovation incubator that expands the skills, tools, and competencies of independent artists, producers and leaders. From intensive programs to online tools, Generator is transforming the role of the artist producer one artist at a time.
Find organizational updates here.
Generator’s work bridges the gap between artistic and producing skills. We are both reflecting and shaping a world in which the creative process isn't divorced from the administrative process. Our programs are innovative and one-size-fits-one, designed to dramatically transform the lives of artists so that they are more capable of sustaining a lifelong career in the sector. We meet folks where they are; we want to hear folks’ ideas and underpin them with the skills, resources and training that we have to offer.
We are also leaders and agents of change, prototyping solutions for a changing independent arts ecology. We build partnerships and promote collaboration, convening hard conversations and driving sector change.
We are committed to helping as many artists as possible to increase their understanding of finances, decrease the stress of producing their own work, and make smarter choices based on long-term goals. How can we achieve artist-led administration? How can an artist’s creative practices be reflected in their administrative practices? We are trying to cultivate a sector in which a fundamentally different group of people from those who came before have the ability to tell their stories in fundamentally different ways, on stages that haven’t yet been conceived of. We are working to build momentum for a future of the arts sector that is not yet imaginable: justice-focused, equitable, decolonized, and radically inclusive. Our work is to open pathways, grow confidence, and evolve toolkits, so that artists can do things that haven’t yet been dreamed of.
The previous Generator staff at our winter Generator Generations gathering in January 2020. Left to right: Kristina Lemieux, Keshia Palm, Sedina Fiati, Audrey Quinn, and Annie Clarke.
Currently Staff Bianca Guimarães de Manuel and Patricia Allison co-working at the Generator Office.
Our previous Online Content Producer Keshia Palm (left) and Annie Clarke (right) shooting our Producing Social Media YouTube series in February 2020.
Our Programs
We prioritize high quality, one-size-fits-one training for small groups of Canadian artists, collectives and organizations. We work with artists to build the tools they need to take charge of their careers and adopt values-driven approaches to their creative and administrative practices. Our programs build artists’ capacities and support them as they create and challenge artistic forms, through properly-resourced projects that are created and managed with the confidence that allows for risk.
Our programs fall into three categories:
Professional Development
Our professional development programs are rigorous courses with specific learning outcomes and goals. These programs consist of small cohorts of dedicated individuals interested in developing specific skills.
Leadership
Our leadership programs are designed for artists to develop the skills they need to advance their careers. These programs, open to companies as well as individuals, are adaptable and flexible.
Community
Our community-based dialogues and resources are open source and widely accessible. They consist of conversations about key issues and places to compile and share practical and philosophical knowledge.
Generator has also piloted a number of new projects. Learn about our ongoing and past projects on our Programs page.
Our Team
Our staff, and their holistic wellbeing, are central to what we do. The arts is about people. In order to be creative and generous, people need to feel safe, rested, fed, cared for, and surrounded by a solid community. We are working to drastically shift the structures and tools that colonialism and patriarchy have bequeathed us — structures which leave so many people unable to do just that. We are cultivating ways of being that we don’t yet have great examples of — ways of collaborating with our communities to find ways of supporting each other and creating together.
Generator is now co-led by Bianca Guimarães de Manuel (Director of Operations), Nikki Shaffeullah (Director of Programming), & Patricia Allison (Director of Communications) Learn more about our staff on the Generator Team page.