The creative class, creative economy and creative cities are all heralds of current North American planning directions. My research seeks to understand how the Art Factory, a multi-tenant and multi-purpose artist space, contributes to the lives of artists and the general creative potential of a city. This research is a case study of cre8ery, an art factory located in Winnipeg’s Exchange District, the gentrifying cultural quarter of the city. I interviewed ten artists, exploring how cre8ery affected their social, professional and economic lives. cre8ery serves as a gateway into the art world for emerging artists by providing stability and opportunities to them. In general, Art Factories are centres of cultural entrepreneurship, an activity essential to the health of artists and the city. I also explore the shift of the artist populations in Winnipeg due to gentrification, offering several policy initiatives that would either stem or support this shift. / February 2009

The creative class, creative economy and creative cities are all heralds of current North American planning directions. My research seeks to understand how the Art Factory, a multi-tenant and multi-purpose artist space, contributes to the lives of artists and the general creative potential of a city. This research is a case study of cre8ery, an art factory located in Winnipeg’s Exchange District, the gentrifying cultural quarter of the city. I interviewed ten artists, exploring how cre8ery affected their social, professional and economic lives. cre8ery serves as a gateway into the art world for emerging artists by providing stability and opportunities to them. In general, Art Factories are centres of cultural entrepreneurship, an activity essential to the health of artists and the city. I also explore the shift of the artist populations in Winnipeg due to gentrification, offering several policy initiatives that would either stem or support this shift.

The creative class, creative economy and creative cities are all heralds of current North American planning directions. My research seeks to understand how the Art Factory, a multi-tenant and multi-purpose artist space, contributes to the lives of artists and the general creative potential of a city. This research is a case study of cre8ery, an art factory located in Winnipeg’s Exchange District, the gentrifying cultural quarter of the city. I interviewed ten artists, exploring how cre8ery affected their social, professional and economic lives. cre8ery serves as a gateway into the art world for emerging artists by providing stability and opportunities to them. In general, Art Factories are centres of cultural entrepreneurship, an activity essential to the health of artists and the city. I also explore the shift of the artist populations in Winnipeg due to gentrification, offering several policy initiatives that would either stem or support this shift.

La era del plus digital nos proporciona un espacio en el cual nosotros podemos controlar y manejar bitácoras relacionadas a afinidades o trabajo. Asimismo, debido a las redes sociales y a su rol en la cultura actual, los artistas cuentan con más ventanas de exhibición en las cuales sus trabajos pueden ser vistos por una mayor cantidad de personas con intereses relacionados al arte y a la cultura. Sin embargo, hay galerías virtuales que se enfocan en mostrar al mundo el trabajo de mujeres y más aun de aquellas que comienzan en el mundo artístico. Esto representa un nuevo e interesante giro con enfoque de género, que motiva una revisión puesto que la posición de las mujeres en el mundo del arte se ha visto obstaculizada a lo largo de los años. En este documento se analizarán los procesos y dinámicas de cuentas latinoamericanas relacionadas al arte y difusión. Luego, se abordarán los retos y procesos por los que atraviesan las administradoras bajo su discurso feminista. / The era of the digital plus provides us with a space in which we can control and manage blogs related to affinities or work. Likewise, because of social networks and their role in current culture, artists have more exhibition windows in which their works can be seen by a greater number of people with interests related to art and culture. However, there are virtual galleries that focus on showing the world the work of women and even more of those who start in the artistic world. This represents a new and interesting turn with a gender perspective, which motivates a revision since the position of women in the art world has been hindered over the years. This document will analyze the processes and dynamics of Latin American accounts related to art and diffusion. Then, the challenges and processes that administrators go through under their feminist discourse will be addressed. / Trabajo de investigación

I sought to find out whether this was a tension between artistic and commercial in the career of visual artists, and if so, how this tension was managed. In attempting to uncover information which could address the research question I undertook in-depth career history interviews with artists which covered their time at art school through to their current practice. The career history method was deliberately chosen in order to address the research question at a tangent as both the literature, and my own personal experience of the field of contemporary visual art, had suggested that the topic of artistic and commercial was a sensitive one. By framing the interviews around the experiences the artists had through the time period of their training and career, I was able to approach the research questions indirectly from the perspective of the artists. Through analysis of the interview transcripts the framework of Bourdieu's capitals arose as one that would capably explain the activities which the artists were undertaken and I used this as a framing device for the empirical chapters in the thesis. In exploring ideas of cultural, social and economic capitals in relation to how artists describe the activities they undertake during their career it became apparent that the broad structures of cultural capital needed further refinement in their application to the careers of visual artists. In the thesis I chose to elaborate further on the concept of artistic capital which has, until now, been unexplored by scholars. I have developed an understanding of artistic capital as a subcategory of cultural capital with particular application to the field of contemporary visual art – with the potential for wider application beyond the thesis. The three capitals of artistic, social and economic proved a capable structure for understanding whether there was a tension between artistic and commercial and how artists managed this. Through this research I have found that artists come to believe, during their early career and training through art school, that there is a tension between artistic and commercial as this is perpetuated by institutions and art world participants through their exclusion or dismissal of commercial aspects of the visual art field. Through their careers they come to realise that this tension is less prevalent than they thought and that they are able to manage these two aspects of artistic and commercial more effectively. However, artists continue to be faced with instances where this tension is imposed upon them by other art world players who perpetuate the belief that there is an inherent, unresolvable tension between artistic and commercial. These individuals attempt to shield artists from this perceived tension later in their careers when artists are already adept at managing the competing priorities of artistic and commercial without the two creating tension.