Safe(r) Spaces & Anti-Racism

Common Ground Arts Society programming is for you, exactly as you are.

No matter who you are, what you look like, how or who you love, where you’re from, how you got here, how you identify, how or if you honour whatever higher power, or how you move through this world, you belong here.

What matters to us is that you feel welcome.

We believe in creating safer spaces that allow for creative risk. That means looking out for each other, communicating often and openly, respecting one another, being responsible for ourselves, our actions, and our impacts, making friends, and enjoying all Found has to offer.

We honour the vulnerability of the artistic process, and the beauty of the exchange between artists and audiences. We commit to sustaining a safe space by respecting, and even boldly loving, everyone who contributes to it. In an effort to uphold safer spaces on our Found Grounds and at our Festival events, we have created an evolving Safe(r) Spaces policy. This policy offers multiple ways to report an incident (whether you witness or experience something), including anonymous reporting structures, and an available external liaison should you not feel comfortable talking to Festival staff or board representatives.   The safety of our artists, volunteers, staff, and patrons is our #1 priority, but we know it takes a darn village to make that happen. Thanks in advance for creating a culture of caring with us.

Common Ground Arts Society (CGAS) and Found Festival foster unique artistic experiences that offer creative collisions between artists and audiences in unconventional and non-traditional spaces.
We believe in creating safe spaces that allow for creative risk. We commit to upholding open, supportive, receptive, and collaborative spaces and experiences that welcome all members of our community including artists, volunteers, staff, board members, and patrons.

We honour the vulnerability of the artistic process, and the beauty of the exchange between artists and audiences. We commit to sustaining a safe space by:

  • being mindful that our community resides on Treaty Six land;
  • embracing all forms of diversity;
  • creating a respectful, safe environment free from harassment, violence, discrimination, bullying, abuse, and solicitation;
  • ensuring all artists, volunteers, staff, board members, patrons, and/or community members are treated with respect and dignity;
  • providing opportunities for everyone to contribute to, participate in, and/or witness the creative process whenever possible and appropriate;
  • giving individuals and groups who are speaking or performing focus and respect;
  • assuming positive intent from others, but listening and learning when the impact of our actions may not match our intent;
  • respecting physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual boundaries;
  • using inclusive language, and listening and learning when language used may have been exclusive;
  • engaging in ongoing conversations about how to make our spaces more inclusive;
  • calling in and/or putting an immediate stop to activities or behaviors that discriminate on the grounds of race, colour, place of origin, gender, age, marital status, religious beliefs, citizenship, mental and physical abilities, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited grounds within the Alberta Human Rights Act;
  • resolving discriminatory or harassment reports in an appropriately timely manner within the best ability of the organization in a way that centers the survivor and their needs; and
  • engaging the support, guidance, and learnings of professional organizations and appropriate external bodies when necessary.

For more information, please refer to our Safer Spaces & Anti-Harassment Program

Submit a Report

Thank you for helping us maintain a safer space by submitting a report. We are grateful for your willingness to come forward.

The following form is to report an incident that violates our Safer Space Program. All reports are received and read by Found Festival Director Whittyn Jason (whittynjason@commongroundarts.ca ) and CGAS Managing Producer Mac Brock (macbrock@commongroundarts.ca). You may report an incident by completing and submitting the form below, or directly by contacting Whittyn Jason and/or Mac Brock as above.

Common Ground Arts Society commits to taking immediate and appropriate action, reporting and following up with any incident of harassment, violence, discrimination, bullying, or abuse that is witnessed, disclosed, or reported. Every report will be followed up in a timely manner.

Safer Spaces

Name (Optional)
If you choose to include your contact information, how do you prefer to be contacted (ie, text, email, phone call)?
Did this incident happen to you, or did you witness it?
Do you wish for this incident to remain anonymous to those involved in the incident? (please note: anonymous disclosure may limit our ability to conduct a thorough investigation)
We respect your right to make your own decision about how we should process this incident. Please choose one of the following:
Date of incident (MM/DD/YYYY)
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

CGAS Anti-Racism Commitment

Common Ground Arts Society recognizes injustice and racism are deeply entrenched in our society. We acknowledge that the current oppressive systems of power advance non-racialized groups. We recognize that silence makes us complicit in these oppressive systems.

Black Lives Matter.

Change must come. Change starts with the individual, it starts in community, it starts with us. We commit to being part of that change.

The work we do will be ongoing. We commit to doing this work within our organization and in collaboration with the greater Edmonton arts community.

We commit to:

  • providing and requiring anti-oppression training for our board and staff;
  • developing and implementing an anti-racism policy that all board members, staff, artists, and volunteers must commit to;
  • increasing the representation of Black and Indigenous artists in our programming;
  • changing our recruitment practices to improve BIPoC representation on our staff, on our board, and in our volunteer program;
  • developing an organizational succession plan that invites BIPoC artists and administrators into the core of our organization;
  • working to secure funding for a Black, Indigenous, PoC emerging artist in residence program, including paid mentorship from established BIPoC artists;
  • offering ongoing mentorship to BIPoC artists, technicians, and arts administrators;
  • listening to and uplifting the voices of BIPoC artists in our community;
  • continuing to educate ourselves around anti-racism practices; and
  • implementing these commitments into our organizational strategic plan, including timelines and accountability measures.

Below is a list of resources we have found helpful in our ongoing education. We will continue to update this list as we learn and grow.