Welcome to Artifex

Artifex was created in 2019-20 through a partnership between Mass Culture and the Creative Hubs and Networks Database  at University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) with support from the Critical Digital Methods Institute (CDMI), which continues to host the repository.  Through the generosity of the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA),  Mass Culture has expanded its capacity to collect  additional resources from the Canadian arts sector and make them accessible on Artifex. CDMI co-lead Mary Elizabeth Luka continues to work with Mass Culture to advise on and maintain the appropriate ethics protocols needed for the collection and presentation of resources in a manner that recognizes the moral, artistic, and IP contributions of artists, researchers, and copyright holders involved in the production of such resources.

Artifex reflects commitments shared between Mass Culture and CDMI (UTSC) to ensure all communities have the ability to mobilize and benefit from arts and culture research. Consequently, Artifex is publicly accessible. The exchange and dissemination of knowledge and research links that this database provides will be important to the following organizations and individuals: policy makers, creative workers and artists, researchers and academics, media, funders and general interest audiences. The resource database presents information in a way that is both digestible and in-depth, making it a key information resource for anyone working in or interested in the arts and cultural sector in Canada.

Who can use this resource?

Funder

Researcher

Creative Worker

Artrepreneurs/ Entrepreneurs

Media

Administrators

General Interest

Policy Makers

Select a dashboard view to learn how to make Artifex work for you.

Submission Process

Individuals who wish to submit resources to Artifex can do so by clicking on “submit a resource”. They will be asked whether they hold the intellectual property (IP) rights for the resource. If so, they will be asked to confirm their permission to feature the resource on Artifex.

Individuals who wish to submit resources you do not hold the IP rights can still submit the suggested resource on this form. They will be asked for the name and contact information for the people who hold IP or distribution rights. Mass Culture commits to attempt to contact the rights holders to get permission before including the resource(s) on Artifex.

Resources sourced by UTSC students or researchers or by Mass Culture staff or volunteers will follow up with IP holders via email to seek written permission to post resources.

From time to time, resources are provided to Mass Culture or UTSC in hard copy form with the hope of digitizing and including them in a shareable folder in downloadable form. In this case, Mass Culture will aim to identify the IP holder and seek written permission to digitize and upload the material for use in Artifex and by Artifex users.

While best efforts have been made to correctly identify the IP and moral rights holders for all items in this repository, if you identify a resource in this repository that you hold IP or moral rights to that has not been cleared with you, please contact artifex@massculture.ca to have the resource removed from the repository until such time as your permission is secured. You can also submit your information via the CDMI contact page at CDMIutsc@gmail.com.

Mass Culture and CDMI (UTSC) respect the intellectual property and consent of those whose work is presented on Artifex. If you are concerned that you have found material in this collection, for which you have not given permission or if you wish to withdraw permission, please contact Mass Culture’s team using the email address artifex@massculture.ca stating the following:

  1. Your contact information (including email address and phone)
  2. Exact URL where you found the material
  3. Details that describe the material (name, specifications, characteristics, etc.)
  4. The reason why you would like content removed or altered, with any pertinent documentation

Upon receipt of your objection, we will aim to:

  1. Acknowledge receipt of your statement via email within five business days (or other means of communication if you do not have an email account)
  2. Temporarily remove the material from public view while we assess your information

Upon completion of our assessment, Mass Culture and CDMI (UTSC) will take appropriate action and communicate that action to you.

To support the advancement of open and accessible information and data, while respecting the labour that goes into producing such information and data, Artifex provides this set of research resources under the following license and conditions. Mass Culture and CDMI (UTSC) are committed to recognizing and respecting intellectual property rights  information and data represented within the database.

  • Those wishing to use this Resource Database are required to acknowledge Mass Culture/UTSC per the Creative Commons (CC) license.
    • Under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license, users are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
    • Attribution: Users must give appropriate credit to the Resource Database and to original source organization, researcher or entity
    • Non-Commercial: The Resource Database may not be used for commercial purposes
    • Derivatives: users that decide to change or build upon the material from the Resource Database may not distribute the reformed material
  • All information that is derived from the Resource Database is required to acknowledge Mass Culture,  CDMI (UTSC) as well as the originating organization or researcher represented as the original source.
  • This License does not apply to third-party content. Anyone wishing to use content that belongs to the researchers and organizations within the database is responsible for understanding and contacting the right holder(s) for their permission.

By signing and submitting this license, you (the author(s) or copyright owner) grants to University of Toronto the non-exclusive right to reproduce, translate (as defined below), and/or distribute your submission (including the abstract) worldwide in print and electronic format and in any medium, including but not limited to audio or video.

You agree that University of Toronto may, without changing the content, translate the submission to any medium or format for the purpose of preservation.
You also agree that UofT may keep more than one copy of this submission for purposes of security, back-up and preservation.

You represent that the submission is your original work, and that you have the right to grant the rights contained in this license. You also represent that your submission does not, to the best of your knowledge, infringe upon anyone’s copyright.

If the submission contains material for which you do not hold copyright, you represent that you have obtained the unrestricted permission of the copyright owner to grant University of Toronto the rights required by this license, and that such third-party owned material is clearly identified and acknowledged within the text or content of the submission.

IF THE SUBMISSION IS BASED UPON WORK THAT HAS BEEN SPONSORED OR SUPPORTED BY AN AGENCY OR ORGANIZATION OTHER THAN UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, YOU REPRESENT THAT YOU HAVE FULFILLED ANY RIGHT OF REVIEW OR OTHER OBLIGATIONS REQUIRED BY THE AGREEMENT WITH SUCH SPONSOR.

UofT will clearly identify your name(s) as the author(s) or owner(s) of the submission, and will not make any alteration, other than as allowed by this license, to your submission.

Mass Culture is a collaborative support organization that takes a community-based approach to providing diverse parties with the context and connections to enhance equitable mobilization of arts and culture research. By convening cultural workers and academics, Mass Culture provides a platform for knowledge to be explored, widely understood, and mobilized. Artifex supports Mass Culture’s overarching mission to recognize, undertake and disseminate professional research that is relevant to the Canadian arts community and its growing network of researchers. This database also supports the University’s mandate to create and share original knowledge.

Artifex is a crowd-sourced repository of arts research resources. Resources are organized according to the following categories: datasets; models and frameworks; tools; projects and programs; advocacy and policy resources; resource repositories; and other resources. Please note that only open-access academic journals are featured in Artifex. Individuals interested in academic research are encouraged to consult the following non-exhaustive list of academic journals’ official websites, but should note that associated resources will be protected by a paywall:

  • City, Culture and Society
  • Museum and Society
  • Museum Management and Curatorship
  • American Journal of Arts Management
  • Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts
  • Canadian Public Policy
  • Canadian Journal of Communication
  • ENCATC Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy
  • International Journal of Arts Management
  • International Journal of Cultural Policy
  • International Journal of Museum
  • Management and Curatorship
  • International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing
  • International Studies of Management and Organizations
  • Journal of Arts Management, Law & Society
  • Journal of Cultural Economics
  • Music & Entertainment Industry Educators Association Journal

The information collected for this database came from publicly available information from the organizations, researchers or individuals, as recommended or sourced by individuals within Mass Culture’s growing network, and by the students who worked on the project. Additional resources can be found in the complementary academic bibliographies. With an increasing inventory of research papers, toolkits, and other materials, Mass Culture decided to organize this material to share, in a comprehensive way, with those interested in cultural research. Assembly of the original material was overseen by Tara Mazurk, Robin Sokoloski, and Kathryn Geertsema from Mass Culture. Refinement and data organization is overseen by Mary Elizabeth Luka (UTSC) with original data organization conducted by Sylvie Stojanovski with help and advice from UTSC Digital Scholarship Unit including Kirsta Stapelfeld, David Kwasny, and Paulina Rousseau. Additional COVID resources were researched and added by Hazel Yoon in 2020-21. Three Mass Culture “datathons” in 2021-2022 have contributed several dozen additional resources in the focus areas of mental health, climate change mitigation, and impact assessment. Additional data uploading and organization was undertaken by Laurence D. Dubuc (Mass Culture & UTSC), and Upasana Bhattacharjee (UTSC) between 2022-2023. Graphic design is by Hazel Yoon and JP King, and website design by Jermaine Williams.