I sat down with Olivia Klasios, who is running unopposed for the position of Arts and Culture Commissioner, to talk about her previous experience within VUSAC and goals for making the Art and Culture commission more visible, new, and exciting.
The Strand: With having tons of experience with VUSAC already, and being largely involved with Vic, what are some of the things you’ve learned from these previous experiences? How do they apply to make you the best candidate for this position?
Olivia Klasios: I’ve been largely involved with VUSAC since my first year, and now going into my fourth year, I’ve seen a lot of different ways the councils have been structured and how they’ve worked. Just growing from those experiences gives me the opportunity to do my best shot, knowing how three different commissioners have run this portfolio.
Without the presence of an Equity Commissioner, someone who works alongside the Arts & Culture Commissioner, do you plan on absorbing these responsibilities? If not, how do you plan to deal with this absence?
For sure if this absence continues, I will pick up Mic the Change, 100%, because that is our major collaborative event. I’d also look into taking the current equity commissioner’s transition report (year to year you get a transition report from commissioners, so the incoming one will receive a report of how they found this year and set out some goals and points for next year), so I would look into the current one, and see what I can do with that under Arts and Culture. But I really hope someone runs for Equity next year!!
Arts and Culture events can often seem like a string of Facebook events, how do you plan on making these more visible, or do you believe that these are already a good platform for visibility?
I think there’s always going to be Facebook events to get things out there, but I’m thinking smaller-sized and more regular, but more variety. I was talking about in my platform—I was on Groupon a while ago for some reason—they have all these classes like woodcarving, painting and ceramics, so I’m hoping to introduce that, and people with their friends can sign up for tickets and go and try something new. Hopefully it’s something they can do on a fun night out, and [that] introduces them to the culture around Toronto.
Because Toronto is so big and there are so many opportunities to see the art and culture within the city, students can stray away from campus very easily. How do you plan on externalizing the Arts and Culture commission’s presence & maintaining a presence outside of Vic and UofT?
I’ll definitely contact the arts heads over at SMC, UCLIT, TCM; hopefully we can do collaborative events, and look into UTSU to consider UofT-wide events. When externalising into Toronto, I kind of was thinking of looking at different neighborhoods, because each neighborhood has a different feel, so I can direct students into different cultures.
I also saw in your platform you proposed trips to the AGO, The ROM, and other museums. How do you plan on maintaining a commission presence on these events—as students can choose to go on their own time.
I think definitely signing up for certain time periods work; I would try to get students going to First Thursday at the AGO, and I’ll be looking into getting a set of tickets for Friday Night Live at the ROM so students will be able to sign up for that.
Voting takes place Saturday, March 19 through to Wednesday, March 23 online at voting.utoronto.ca
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