ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that the financial and institutional conditions for art in Canada have led to support for the installation as a particular form of threedimensional work by women artists. It is an investigation, not by an art historian, but by a senior manager in a public art gallery,2 which seeks to link practice to the conditions for production. The study was severely limited by lack of available statistical data, as many of the original questions posed by Claudine Mitchell as a stimulus for the investigation seem to have been rarely asked, particularly with reference to specific media such as sculpture. While research by the Canada Council has examined equity in the awarding of grants by gender and by region, no research has been conducted according to categories of practice. In fact, this sort of categorization is deceptive in the face of the ways in which artists work today, often utilizing a variety of media in their practice.
