Decolonizing Contracts in the Arts and Beyond

In this collaborative project with the Toronto Metropolitan University (through the Digital Solutions Incubator with the TAC), we are currently generating a prototype for a Virtual Reality and guided meditation model of contracting and onboarding artists optimized to support accessibility, enchantment, clarity, and empowerment in the HR contract-signing process

This project aims to support a deeper culture of consent in the Arts and adjacent sectors, empowering co-creative agency in the contracting process to intervene upon cultures of inequity and legacies of inaccessibility and disengaement in the creation and signing of contracts that reflect histories of colonial contract-building processes in which written agreements were expressed in intentionally obfucastory and incoherent language to create conditions for signees to be vulnerable to misunderstanding and predatory/inequitable relationships

We are currently preparing to generate a full prototype, test the model  with stakeholders (artists-contractors), and received feedback. In the third phase, we will engage in strategic foresight to vision how to best share and disseminate the model through partnership development 

This project will be tested, expanded and evaluated with partners and stakeholders in Phase 2 (2024) of the project, leading up to Phase 3 (2025) where we will focus on building partnerships throughout the sector to support the dissemination and further evaluation of the model while facilitating public workshops and education around decolonizing cultures of contract building in the arts sector and beyond.