Vision, Mission + Values

VIVO Media Arts Centre is located on the unceded territory of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. Incorporated as Satellite Video Exchange Society, VIVO is a steward of critical history and an agent for emergent experimental media arts practices. Our programs foster formal and critical approaches to media arts, and reflect the diversity of contemporary technologies and communities that coalesce around new forms of knowledge and creativity. VIVO builds an engaged audience through workshops, production support, distribution, artist residencies, performances and exhibitions as well as curatorial and archival research. We are also the caretakers of a significant and substantial repository of media art history. Through these activities and our extensive archival resources, VIVO plays a unique role in facilitating and fostering artistic practices in the region.

‍VIVO’s vision is for everyone to have the means and agency to creatively question and participate in their mediated worlds.

‍VIVO’s mission to nurture past, present and future media arts discourses and communities through equitable and public access to resources for preservation, production and dissemination.

VIVO works toward the following core values:

‍Experimental - We support experimental, non-commercial, emergent, collaborative, non-normative, generational, and community-driven practices.

Artist-run - As an organization founded by artists and activists, we support artist-run values of fair compensation, self-organization, diversity and inclusion. We recognize that living up to these values requires deepening support for artists and practitioners.

Inclusivity - We strive for an inclusive assembly that allows for new encounters with people and ideas where difference is welcomed and celebrated.

Media Preservation - We care for a living repository of experimental media arts and performance legacy and strive to ensure access to all who want to engage.

Responsiveness - We strive toward critical awareness of ourselves and our various contexts, the changing needs of the communities around us, the power structures that exist in contemporary society, and the historic and systemic barriers to access.

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