David Maggs defines his work as an attempt to integrate the core capacities of the arts with larger social challenges, sustainability, health, social justice, community development, etc.
David grew up in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and spent much of his developmental years as a classical pianist. In 2002, he founded Gros Morne Summer Music (now Camber Arts) and continues to be active in cultural production and cultural theory.
My first conversation with David was e30 maggs – art and the world after this recorded during an outdoors COVID era walk on March 25, 2021 in Vancouver. We talked about artistic capacity, sustainability, value propositions, disruption and recovery, including his Art and the World After This paper for Metcalf Foundation.
Since then David has become Metcalf Fellow on Arts and Society, where he nurtures and supports the desire in Canada’s arts sector to both move with, and shape ongoing patterns of transformative societal change.
David and I were co-founders of SCALE along with Anjali Appadurai. Anthony Garoufalis-Auger, Kendra Fanconi, Judi Pearl and Robin Sokoloski in 2021 and have been corresponding ever since, including my March 16, 2024 posting on a calm presence david maggs’ art and the climate crisis.
Our second conversation focused on being and transformation. For example :
David also talks about the cultural gap in the climate crisis which he defines as ‘the difference between the imperative of transformation at the level of being and a particular society's capacity to do so. Ours is really low.’
David’s recommended reading is the work of Richard Powers and Don McKay’s Vis à vis.