In the later phase of the ASC! research project, we had the opportunity to collaborate with SFU’s Big Data to collect, analyze and map data on community-engaged, participatory arts organizations in BC. Publicly available data/information was gleaned from these organizations’ websites and placed into an online, interactive, platform called Tableau where people can explore and make cross-comparisons and assessments that may help provide insights into many questions.

MAIN OBJECTIVES: To map publicly available data about BC, community-engaged, participatory, arts for social change (ASC) organizations (not-for-profits, societies, charities only) active within the last 5 years. Our goal is to provide useful information to support and nurture the ASC sector.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: To provide a template and pilot project for future research projects to continue the work of mapping this sector in BC and other Canadian provinces.

A DEFINITION of ART FOR SOCIAL CHANGE (ASC) work studied in this project: Community-engaged ASC involves the creation of art collectively made by groups of people (who may not self-identify as artists) about what matters to them. This process is facilitated by a specially-trained artist or group of artists. ASC work extends beyond simply offering (paid or unpaid) arts workshops and programming. It encompasses a wider scope of community art-making as dialogic, learning and exchange processes where people are collaboratively making art to explore issues that are important to them.

>>> Find out more about ASC

The BC #ASCmap is organized in 9 tabs.

The following tabs are the best points of entry:

1.  >>> The Geographical Map and Graphs of BC ASC enables exploration of such information as: who and where the ASC organizations are; what social change do they focus on; what communities they serve; what arts disciplines they use; and more
2.  >>> The Site Guide we have provided (also via PDF) to assist in using the site
3.  >>> The Dictionary (also via PDF) which explains the categories and other terms we used in this project
4.  >>> The “About” page is essentially the Tableau “home” page for the site.

The other 5 tabs are:

• Organizations Detail: This tab provides a different way to sort through the organizations, making it easier to look up the specific organizations and their details, such as websites, etc.
• Funding and Support Overview: This tab maps who’s funding and supporting “who”, “what”, and “where” in the BC ASC sector. NOTE: This map was arrived at by collecting the acknowledgements posted on our organizations’ websites and correlating that with what the organizations do. Therefore, this is only a rough snapshot of where the support is going as far as the categories go.
• Totals of Funding to BC ASC from the Three Main Public Funders, Canada Council, BC Arts Council, and the City of Vancouver: shows the total grant dollar values dispensed to the ASC organizations in our database in comparison to the overall non-ASC arts and culture funding in BC.
• Percentages of Funding to BC ASC from the Three Main Public Funders: shows the percentages of funding dispensed to the ASC organizations in our database in comparison to the overall non-ASC arts and culture funding in BC.
• Grand Total of Funding from the Three Main Funders Combined: visualizes the combined grand totals of funding dollars from all three funders (CCA, BCAC, and City of Vancouver combined) going to BC ASC in comparison to the overall non-ASC arts and culture funding in BC.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This data visualization project is a collaboration of Simon Fraser University’s (SFU) Art for Social Change (ASC!) research project (an initiative of the International Centre of Art for Social Change, ICASC) and SFU BIG DATA. The SFU BIG DATA team was Steven Bergner, Rada Pop and Stanislaw Nowak. The SFU ASC! team was Cary Campbell, Srijani Datta, and Kim Gilker.