Marion Lecoq is a cultural project manager from Montreal, Canada. She has experience in communications, marketing, PR, production, and event management within nonprofits, creative agencies, and cultural organizations.
Curious, creative, and devoted, she is deeply drawn to art as a medium to raise social awareness and to support environmentally conscious projects. Marion graduated from the MMIAM program in 2019 and now resides in Amsterdam where she is the Communications and Programming Manager for Contact Amsterdam.
Are you an artist? How did you first become interested in the arts?
I don’t consider myself an artist. I’ve experimented with different artistic mediums—as a kid I played piano and was involved in youth theater—and I grew up in a very artistic family. From a very young age I visited museums and attended concerts. Also, my sister is an artist. So, I’ve always been interested in this field. I’ve been trying some new creative activities—ceramics, photography, and embroidery.
How did you decide you wanted a career in the arts?
I always liked being in cultural spaces; they were where I felt good. I liked theater, piano, writing, and photography, so I wanted to do something related to one of those, but I wasn’t sure what. I began working in communications—I thought maybe I would become a journalist—but my first internship was actually at the McCord Museum and that was an eye-opening experience. It confirmed what I thought all along.
Can you tell me a little about what you do now?
So, should we zoom out a bit? I can give you the full context.
I was born in Montreal but my mom is French, and so I also have French citizenship. After finishing my Bachelor’s degree, I moved to Paris. While I was living there, I found a job in a big cultural space. It was an old castle that was redeveloped into a concert, workshop, and exhibition space dedicated to raising awareness of social and environmental causes; basically combining the arts and sustainability. I enjoyed it so much! I worked in programming for a year before leaving for the MMIAM.
I’ve discovered that I like these multi-functional spaces that bring very different people together for collaboration. They exist in big cities but also in smaller towns around the world; these spaces used to be industrial and were abandoned before being renovated for innovation and creativity. I used my time in the MMIAM to investigate these spaces. Every time we traveled I would try to find something comparable. Like I said, they exist all over in some form or fashion but of course, the finance models and functions change based on the community they exist in. Through my research, I learned that Amsterdam is one of the pioneers of this concept. Life brought me here for other reasons but I’ve found a job in this type of environment here in the city.
It’s an old Volkswagen garage that was renovated into artist studios but there is also a theater, a restaurant, meeting rooms, and a garden. There are events and different things happening here all the time. When I say artist studios, I’m referring to artists very broadly. There are painters, photographers, makers, fashion designers, musicians, but also engineers and architects who use the spaces as well. We also have a maker space. The maker space has machines and tools that can be shared by anyone renting space here. It’s a super inspiring place because it provides a support system and a community to artists who would otherwise usually work by themselves or from home. As everyone comes from very different disciplines and backgrounds, it offers endless opportunities for collaboration and creative problem-solving.
A conference at Contact Amsterdam.
I’m officially the Communications and Marketing Manager, but when it’s all said and done, I do quite a few other things. We are a very small team, so we all have to be quite versatile! I do tours when studios become available. We are very full, with a community of 100 artists currently renting space here. I take care of the community; trying to make sure that everyone is happy. I organize events and programming; I’m actually in the process of applying for funding so that we can do more. I also work on external communications, making sure that word is getting out about the venue’s existence.
What from the MMIAM program you use regularly?
A lot of it! A lot of the human skills. We were such a diverse cohort—this inspired me quite a bit—and it was very helpful for what I do now. Currently, in the space, we are renting to people from all over the world: artists in residence come from over 35 different countries, we have both emerging and very established artists, and different generations are represented… keeping everyone happy and working collectively requires many of the skills I learned in the MMIAM.
As for more of the “hard skills,” I apply many of the fundraising and financial management concepts I learned in the MMIAM. As I mentioned, I’m currently in the process of applying for fundraising for our organization; putting together budgets, for example, was not something I’d ever done before the MMIAM.
Is there something either personal or professional that you’ve done in the past year that you’re proud of or excited about?
On a personal note, I started reconnecting with my creative side, thanks to this community of artists, because creativity breeds creativity! It’s quite amazing to work in this space because you get a lot of inspiration from all the creative diversity that it hosts.
I’ve been doing photography for a while and a friend pushed me to exhibit them in a small exhibition here. It forced me to get out of my comfort zone! It was very scary but also made me super proud.
An artist in residence at Contact Amsterdam.