Michael Maranda’s longitudinal research entitled Waging Culture examines the socio-economic status of visual artists across Canada.

Michael Maranda is assistant curator at the Art Gallery of York University. For the past thirty years he has been engaged with the visual arts sector in Canada, as artist, organiser, administrator, curator, editor, advocate, publisher, critic, and, more recently, as quantitative researcher. His Waging Culture survey has set the mark for advocacy-based quantitative research in the sector, recognised as the go-to source for socio-economic information on Canadian visual artists. He runs the publishing activities of the AGYU, and is a prolific commenter on social media.

Maranda was educated at the University of Ottawa (political science), Concordia University (photography), and the University of Rochester (visual and cultural studies). His work has shown internationally, primarily in artists book-related venues. For some deeply ironic reason, his rip-off of Ed Ruscha’s Twentysix Gasoline Stations was exhibited in several of Gagosian’s gallery spaces.