e158 bob sirman - engaging with the artistic experience

• We're not just talking about saving the environment. What we're first and foremost trying to get people to do is care for the environment and you can't care for the environment unless you feel part of it, unless you feel attached to it, unless you can see outside the building and understand we're not living in bubbles. What I mean by bubbles, especially, is that we're not living in an individual bubble, that we have social responsibility, that we make connectivity with other people, building blocks for community, for betterment of, of various kinds.

Robert (Bob) Sirman served as director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts for 8 of my 21 years there. He had a distinguished career in the arts with the Canada Council, Canada’s National Ballet School, the Ontario Arts Council and Ontario’s first Ministry of Culture, among many other contributions. 

I wanted to speak with Bob because he has had a notable influence in my life in terms of engaging with art, ways of being in space (architecture, design), systems thinking and long term planning.

So we sat down at his home in Toronto and talked about art and ecology, aesthetics, the role of art in social change, his legacy as an arts leader and what kind of art inspires him (he mentioned photographer Edward Burtinski).

You’ll hear a story about a meeting between our staff green committee and Bob about the Council carbon footprint in 2007. Bob listened carefully and noted that the Council’s largest carbon footprint at the time was its energy inefficient building on Albert street. I was pleased to see that before he left as Director in 2014 that the Council had moved into, and remains, in a Gold, Class A LEED-certified building on Elgin St. in Ottawa.

I want to thank Bob for his many contributions to the arts in Canada and to the arts community. Many seeds were planted during his tenure that have blossomed, or might yet. 

There were many highlights for me, including Bob's very last statement about how ‘having the conversation again makes us focus and makes us think and pay attention to the things that we really care about.’.

I appreciate his statement about ‘how it's critical to empower artists to be able to choose freely the passions that they wish to pursue and to develop the skills and have the resources to actually connect with other people.’

*

END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

Hey conscient listeners, 

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020 on un-ceded Anishinaabe Algonquin territory (Ottawa). 

It’s my way to give back.

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and its francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I I publish free ‘a calm presence' Substack see https://acalmpresence.substack.com.

Your feedback is always welcome at [email protected] and/or on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tik Tok, YouTube and Substack.

Share what you like, etc

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. 

Claude Schryer

Latest update on July 8, 2025