CREATIVE
I make media, art, research, and editorial projects, with a focus on things that fall between these lines, crafting custom architectures for custom projects.
FUNDRAISING
I shape strategy and secure support for creative, public, and social-purpose projects, organizations, and networks: small and large, formal and informal, established and emergent, local and international. My fundraising and development experience includes projects spanning media, music, arts/culture, food security, economic development, place-making, social justice, environmental activism, immigrant / newcomer services, anti-racism projects, and social enterprise development, among others.
RESEARCH
I have worked as a researcher, consultant, and facilitator for sector development projects, documentaries, municipal government, non-profits, and community collectives. I am currently contributing to research on sustainable practices and policies for alternative cultural spaces.
CLIENTS
My client and partner roster includes avant studios, legacy institutions, peer-driven networks and sundry intrepid, independent teams.
INTERESTS
My curiosity tends toward the liminal, anomalous, divergent, and relational. I'm compelled by the porous, interdependent boundaries of entangled subjectivities, and the abiding persistence, and infinite potentialities, of the not-yet-known. A dynamic collaborator and problem-solver, I am passionate about helping others do things worth doing, make things worth making, fight things worth fighting, and change things worth changing. I love a complex, systems-level project.
STYLE
- Flexible, collaborative, solutions-focused
- Analytical, detail-oriented
- Values-driven - I bring genuine care and integrity to the people and projects that I invest in.
Amy Gottung is a producer, director, consultant, researcher, and writer based in Canada. Bridging sectors and disciplines, her practice evades an easy identity, and encompasses a diverse, international roster of projects, clients, and collaborators.
As a creative producer, Amy has led the realization of experimental media, non-fiction television and video, international festivals, hackathons, operas, and other trans-disciplinary forms. Her recent projects include A More Beautiful Journey, a custom augmented reality app that animated hundreds of kilometres of Toronto public transit line with site-specific, spatialized music and sound from over 30 artists (Joseph Shabason, Casey MQ, Korea Town Acid, Prince Josh, birthday boy, Emissive, Stefana Fratila et al.) The app was available free of charge to TTC riders and remote listeners from 2022-2023.
As a consultant and fundraiser, Amy has worked with a wide range of organizations in creative, social purpose, and cross-sector contexts to build strategy and support. She recently served as the lead local consultant to VibeLab, a global leader in night culture, and the City of Toronto on the development of the City’s Night Economy Strategy. She currently supports business development for the experimental music label Halocline Trance.
From 2016-2020 Amy served as Executive Director of Toronto’s singular “anarchic, circus-like” music and art series, Long Winter (Rolling Stone), where she co-programmed and presented over 1,000 artists in 25+ festival events. In three seasons she initiated and co-developed collective-based frameworks, a first arms-length Board of Directors, and strategic planning processes. She introduced international co-productions with two original festivals focused on underground scenes in Toronto and Paris (Fr), bringing 11 Canadian acts to Europe, more than tripled revenue and activity, and ushered the organization into annual operating funding streams.
Amy is the founder of several cross-sector interventions and international exchanges in support of experimental culture, including an expansive, co-located transmedia festival and research conference, co-presented by Long Winter (Toronto) and La Station Gare des Mines (Paris) in partnership with Toronto Metropolitan University and the Université de Rouen in 2021, and a capacity-building program for DIY spaces, realized in partnership with Trans Europe Halles and leaders from government, real estate, and culture. She is currently one of five core partners delivering Alter-Places: an international research project focused on the sustainability of alternative cultural spaces, based out of the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle and funded by the European Union.
Amy has lived and worked in Toronto, New York, Montréal, Sagueney (QC), Zürich, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and British Columbia. She speaks English and (pretty good) French.
Always looking for the others, Amy collaborates with partners around the world.