On February 20, Claudette Jaiko is stepping down from her position as the Ontario Arts Council's OAC Franco-Ontarian Arts Officer after five years of service.
During her time at OAC, Claudette has been key to initiating partnerships with other funders and nurturing networks among culturally diverse francophone arts communities in order to address their professional needs. Under her leadership, two new programs for francophone visual artists –Artistes visuels et des métiers d’art and Projets d’arts visuels, d’arts médiatiques et de métiers d’art – were established with funding from Canadian Heritage. She leaves as her latest initiative, a capacity-building project for francophone artist-run centres, also co-funded with Heritage Canada, is about to launch.
“Claudette has been a tireless ambassador for francophone arts with her colleagues and with the arts community,” said Peter Caldwell, Director & CEO. “In addition to building important new relationships for OAC, she has led outreach initiatives, such as the À la croisée des voix workshop for culturally-diverse francophone musicians in 2014, and the one for culturally diverse writers, La diversité de la littérature franco-ontarienne at the Salon du livre de Toronto in 2013.”
The search for OAC’s new Francophone Arts Officer will resume in the spring. In the meantime, you can contact François Boivin, Associate Francophone Arts Officer and Nina Charest, Program Assistant, about the Francophone Arts programs.