We are greatly saddened to hear of the closing of CreatedHere Magazine. CreatedHere was established in 2014 to discover and document the stories of New Brunswick artists and improve their ability to present themselves regionally, nationally, and internationally through thought-provoking critical writing.
CreatedHere supported NB’s arts sector by providing opportunities for arts writers and artists to reach a national audience and provided paying work for critical arts writers. Now with the closure of this publication, on top of the closure of Canadian Art Magazine earlier in the pandemic, New Brunswick’s artists and arts writers have very few avenues for promotion and public critique of their work.
ArtsLink strongly believes that critical arts writing is vital to the health of an arts community. To that end, we hosted two intensive workshops on critical arts writing in 2018 and 2019, and many of the participants in those workshops went on to write for CreatedHere. The loss of this publication leaves a void in New Brunswick’s arts landscape.
Without the representation of our artists in periodicals across Canada, our artists are at a serious disadvantage. Whether it is a lack of understanding of the unique qualities of Atlantic art-making or unfamiliarity from jurors, promoters, festivals, or managers outside of NB, this contributes to the export difficulties our arts sector faces. New Brunswick ranks 7th among the 10 provinces for its relative trade deficit, exporting only 29 cents for every dollar of cultural imports.
The critical discourse developed through the lens of arts writing helps cultivate art excellence. It helps our artists frame themselves in an international context, contributing their voices and perspectives to a global arts community. Our sector needs to participate in this larger conversation. Understanding how to talk to artists about their work, how to contextualize work (in contemporary arts discourse, via one’s local influences, the meanings embedded in form etc.), and understanding your audience or market are all integral to taking up the task of writing for the arts.
We are grateful for the contribution that CreatedHere made to the New Brunswick arts sector over the near decade of its existence, and it is our fervent hope that arts writers and artists will once again have many opportunities to publish like those that CreatedHere worked so hard to provide.