Mandate, vision, and history

Our mission revolves around five main aspects:
• showcasing moving image practices and developing audiences through programming activities that highlight the plurality of the artistic practice;
• ensuring the distribution of works and the fair payment of artists fees;
• promoting development and research through the provision of support and advice to artists, researchers and curators as well as access to resources and expertise;
• supporting the acquisition of professional expertise and the development of the media arts community;
• building its collection and ensuring accessibility.

We are dedicated to promoting the recognition and understanding of current
and archival works equally.

Artists are at the heart of Vidéographe’s mission, and we endeavour to support them through various strategies. Fair remuneration for their work constitutes an essential value that we actively defend. We are equally driven by the belief that our artistic discipline should be enriched through dialogue and multiple points of view. To this end, we strive to promote work by artists, curators and researchers from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds and genres. Vidéographe encourages collaboration and boosts opportunities for partnerships with arts and community organizations. In actively participating in national and international arts networks, we foster exchange in order to develop and promote our discipline.

Videographe defends the accessibility of culture. Diversifying our strategies of dissemination enables us to reach wide audiences from specialists to students and members of the general public and, in so doing, to promote Canadian cultural heritage.

Vidéographe recognizes the importance of ensuring the protection of the personal information collected through its website or any other technological means. Vidéographe therefore assumes responsibility for the protection of the personal information that it holds or that it shares, when necessary, with a third party.

‘Personal information’ should be understood as all information that concerns a physical person and that allows them, directly or otherwise, to be identified.

The present Privacy Policy applies to everyone who visits our website and uses its services or who interacts with us through the website or via other technological means.

It lays out the ways in which Vidéographe protects your personal information in order to comply with the requirements of the relevant laws in Québec, namely the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (RLRQ, c. P-39.1).

The personal information that we collect

Over the course of your interactions with us, Vidéographe will collect certain personal information about you. This is necessary to offer you the services requested. This information varies depending on the person from whom it is received:

• Personal information collected for general enquiries: name, place of residence, email address, telephone, web browser, IP address, pages visited and requested, day and time of connection, information necessary to deal with a request.
• Personal information collected for distribution services and for membership management: artist name, biography, filmography, photography, curriculum vitae, social insurance number, PST and GST numbers, date and place of birth, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, language for correspondence, nationality, belonging to an indigenous community.

Purpose of collection

Vidéographe collects your personal information for the purposes outlined below:

• Request for information
• Membership and subscription management
• Services offered (distribution, programming, research and creation, training, technical services)
• Statistics about the collection

Means through which your personal information will be collected

Vidéographe collects your personal information by the following means:

• Websites videographe.org and vitheque.com
• Online forms
• Emails
• Essential cookies

Consent

Vidéographe understands that, by visiting our website or by providing personal information through one of the means listed in the previous paragraph, you consent to its use and disclosure for the purposes outlined above.

You may retract your consent at any time for the use and sharing of the personal information collected by Vidéographe. You may exercise your rights by communicating with us at the following address: info@videographe.org. Retracting permission may prevent us from providing or continuing to provide certain services.

Use and sharing

Vidéographe will not use or share your personal information without your consent. However, Vidéographe may be required to share your personal information with third parties without your consent, where permitted by law, for example: with authorities who have the right to demand it; in order to comply with a court order; or should we deem it necessary in an emergency that threatens the life, health or security of the person concerned or to prevent an act of violence, including suicide.

Retention of personal information

Vidéographe will retain your personal information only for the period necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, except when the law provides for a different retention period to meet legal requirements.

In general, your personal information will be processed and held in Quebec. However, in cases in which it is shared or retained outside of Quebec, Vidéographe will ensure that your personal information is adequately protected and that the transfer is agreed.

Security measures

Vidéographe will protect your personal information with safeguards appropriate to the nature of the information in order to prevent unauthorized access, use, or disclosure to third parties, or to prevent its loss or any other infringement of its protection.

We have taken measures to ensure that only employees who need access to your personal information to carry out their duties will have authorized access. We also ensure that the third parties with whom we share your personal information take the necessary measures to ensure that the information that we share remains confidential and that they use it only for the purposes agreed with them.

Access and amendment to your personal information

It is important that the personal information that we hold for you is up-to-date. Please inform us of any changes.

You may also submit a request

• To access your personal information
• To amend your personal information
• To withdraw your consent for the use or sharing of your personal information
• To stop distributing your personal information, to de-index it
• For portability (from 22 September 2024).

To do so, please contact our Privacy Officer at info@videographe.org.

To make a complaint

We recognize the importance of protecting your personal information. Should you wish to make a complaint regarding the protection that Vidéographe provides for the personal information it holds, you can do so by contacting our Privacy Officer at info@videographe.org.

Contact us

You can communicate with us regarding this Privacy Policy or provide feedback, exercise your rights, or make a complaint by contacting the Privacy Officer.

Date of Policy: 19 March 2024

Located on the unceded traditional territory of the Kanien’kehá:ka nation, Vidéographe recognizes and is committed to interrogating the structural role of white privilege in shaping visual and media arts culture and practices.

Past and recent socio-political events demonstrate the persistence of racism, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny in our society. Systemic oppression and colonial practices still disempower individuals today based on race, age, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, mental or physical ability, economic or social status, and political ideology. We recognize that Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities continue to be disproportionately affected.

We are committed to challenging established privileges and affirming support, particularly for our BIPOC and LGBTQ+ members and colleagues. Additionally, we remain devoted to promoting fairness and opposing racism and oppression.

We embrace the notion of an intellectual community enriched by diversity along many axes, including race, indigeneity, ethnicity, trans/nationality, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, class, age, religion, ability, and neurodiversity. This responsibility is articulated in our acquisition, working conditions, and anti-harassment policies, which aim to integrate the principles of equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism into Vidéographe’s collection and programming, as well as into its team and community.

To this end, Vidéographe makes an ongoing and open contribution to the conversation about dismantling systems of oppression.

1971
Vidéographe opens its doors on St Denis Street, at the instigation of Robert Forget. The centre is set up as part of a National Film Board (NFB) initiative intended to democratize the production and dissemination of video. In a sense, it is a radicalization of Société Nouvelle / Challenge for Change. Vidéographe comprises a video production studio, a screening room, a video library, and a technical research lab.

1973
The NFB pull out of the venture and Robert Forget, Michel Cartier, Jean-Paul Lafrance, Louis Martin, and Robert Russel proceed to have Vidéographe incorporated as an independent organization.

The 1970s
Vidéographe becomes a flagship model for video production thanks to its experimentation lab, its screening space and its active community. Its members are keen to make videos and people from different milieux (arts, unions, sociocultural) come together. Video production becomes increasingly popular.

Vidéographe earns international recognition for its technological innovations, such as the editometer, which is subsequently marketed. In partnership with Vidéotron, Vidéographe also develops Sélectovision, which offers video-on-demand via cable television.

The organization establishes a distribution network for independent video. This network will go on to serve as a model for Canadian and European distributors.

Although these years are fruitful, the centre is hit by two financial crises over the course of the decade (1973 and 1976). Vidéographe goes bankrupt and temporarily closes its doors in 1976.

The 1980s
With a change in fortune, Vidéographe wins a Bingo prize of $200,000. The deficit is met and Vidéographe buys a two-storey building in the heart of the Plateau Mont-Royal, a flourishing and densely populated district of Montréal (1981). The building is still home to the organization today.

Video becomes more and more established within the fields of cinema and the visual arts. Vidéographe collaborates on a number of events with other organizations that were active at the time, notably the exhibition Vidéo 84 – Rencontres vidéo internationales de Montréal (Video 84 – International  Video Conferences, Montréal), which marks a significant milestone in the history of video in Quebec.

The 1990s
Vidéographe’s building is renovated in order to accommodate state-of-the-art digital editing suites. In 1998, l’Espace Vidéographe, an exhibition space dedicated to media arts, opens its doors in Montréal’s downtown area.

A management service for the documents and cataloguing of Vidéographe’s important collection is set up. Three funds, Vidéographe, TVC-4 (Saint-Jérôme) and Sonographe, are established and entrusted to the Cinémathèque québécoise and Sonothèque.

The 2000s
Vidéographe creates PARC, a laboratory that brings artists, programmers, and electrotechnicians together and offers access to specialized infrastructures for research and production in digital, interactive, and electronic arts.

Vidéographe produces a set of DVDs dedicated to Robert Morin, Pierre Falardeau and Julien Poulin, Charles Guilbert and Serge Murphy, and Donigan Cumming. A collection of conversations with Robert Morin and a monograph on the work of Sylvie Laliberté are also published.

In 2008, Vidéographe initiates Vithèque, an innovative online distribution platform. A dispute with a technical partner leads to a financial and organizational crisis for Vidéographe.

The 2010s
Vithèque, launched in 2011, is reviewed and improved upon in 2017 in order to allow better access to works.

Following some difficult years and an extensive process of reflection, Vidéographe repositions itself within its sector. The centre focuses its interventions on dissemination and distribution and sets up new initiatives to promote research, dissemination, and education in its field. In order to realise these new ambitions, fruitful partnerships are established with Montréal arts and community organizations. Vidéographe’s administrative and financial health is restored.

Today
Vidéographe conserves and distributes a collection of more than 2,250 videos made by more than 800 artists and engaged citizens. Thanks to Vidéographe, these works are showcased nationally and internationally through programming and distribution at festivals, galleries, museums, colleges and universities, as well as via the Internet. This video collection is one of the most important in Canada and is undeniably part of the country’s cultural heritage. It shines light on the social and artistic issues and movements that have helped shape cultural life in Quebec and Canada since the 1970s.

Vidéographe is also a vibrant space for artists’ research and development. Through its residential and training programs, as well as the access to work spaces and guidance that it provides, it fosters experimentation and promotes knowledge sharing. Vidéographe broadens opportunities for artists, curators, and researchers to meet and exchange ideas, stimulating its community while facilitating the development of expertise and practices.

Vidéographe constantly monitors technological developments in order to refine its services and develop innovative strategies to support artists.

Vidéographe promotes accessibility to culture. It uses different dissemination strategies in order to reach specialists, students and the general public alike, and to facilitate better appreciation of Quebecois and Canadian cultural heritage. It offers a regular program of screenings and exhibitions as well as mediation and digital experimentation activities for adolescents.

Looking to the future, Vidéographe is currently working on a major building renovation project. Le point nodal d’un réseau mutualisé de ressources et d’expertises en arts médiatiques (The nodal point of a mutualized network of resources and expertise in media arts) is the name of a popular project that will help numerous media arts practitioners to realize their goals and aspirations by offering a vital space for creation, incubations and cultural outreach.

In its new spaces, Vidéographe will offer the media arts community access to:

• A multipurpose room for creation, dissemination and training;
• Communal work, meeting, and networking spaces;
• A screening room and storage spaces for the collection;
• A digital experimentation room;
• A digitization room.

These spaces will be designed for communal use by artists and other media arts practitioners. All of the spaces will be wheelchair accessible.

Vidéographe has, since its conception and throughout its 45-year history, been visionary. The centre has proven to be remarkably adaptable in an evolving environment, anticipating the changes necessary to meet the needs of its artistic community and to support its professional milieu, and integrating innovative practices in order to contribute to the field and support development. Its building project testifies to this commitment to serve its community.