In the early 1970s, a number of artist collectives and cultural producers incorporated as non-profit organizations in order to disseminate art practices that were still considered marginal (conceptual art, performance, etc.). In conjunction with the fulfillment of administrative tasks that their institutional existence required, they also created a shared mail-based network. In the same spirit, they utilized cable television and portable video cameras to circumvent communications media hegemony. Within these frameworks, the document represented both a vehicle for decentralized exchanges and the result of bureaucratic transactions.

Some of the organizations dating from these first instances of a self-management paradigm rapidly disbanded while others have survived, despite mandate changes and member rotation. Consequently, individuals with differing ideological views were united under a common corporate name. The historical trajectory of these organizations can be observed in their archival fonds, where the results of partially realized utopias exist alongside material evidence of the artists’ labour. Today, these archives are often entrusted to public museums or university collections.

The Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery’s contemporary exhibition program is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.