Incubating digital arts and cultural entrepreneurship
In June of 2020, Inclusion In Northern Research was established through the leadership of Dr. Emily Choy, PhD, FRGS (McMaster University), Dr. Marie-José Naud, PhD (Université Laval), Paul Sokoloff, MSc (Canadian Museum of Nature), Dr. Catherine Girard, PhD (Université du Québec à Chicoutimi), Dr. Christine Barnard, PhD and Dr. Pascale Ropars, PhD from ArcticNet, one of the Networks of Centres of Excellence of Canada.
In the fall of 2020, members of the collective were also able to participate in consultations and engagement for ArcticNet’s Strategy for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, which also included contributing to shaping Key Performance Indicators to measure inclusion in northern research.
The idea for this initiative began with the launch of a continuing education course held in spring 2021 called Creativity for Entrepreneurship, which was led by Dr. Olaf Kuhlke, PhD from the University of Minnesota Duluth Cultural Entrepreneurship program.
This pilot course brought together more than 30 youth, parents and grandparents from Nunavut, Manitoba, Minnesota and India, with several families participating together in a continuing education course for the very first time.
Incubating arts innovation & digital transformation
Our program was born out of the pandemic, as a grassroots effort to bring artists and community together. It was designed to be small, with a focus on building from the ground up, our goal was to foster creativity and innovation among artists and makers alike. Our program designed a unique and supportive space for experimentation, where new ideas can flourish and grow.
This pilot arts-oriented, volunteer-driven arts collective was a digital arts and entrepreneurship initiative aiming to support the design and testing of a culturally-aligned and community-focused digital creative incubator.
From November 2021-2022 our project was able to provide synchronous and asynchronous training, educating youth and community members about the use of digital technologies to create and valorize their artistic work.
Its primary purpose was to build upon proven cultural entrepreneurship training to foster new arts industry employment through a careful balance of traditional knowledge, science and modern technologies. Indigenous artists from Northwestern Ontario, Nunavut and Manitoba were able to connect with, and learn alongside an inclusive, diverse team of researchers, arts educators and professional artists.
The original idea for our experimental Incubator for Digital Arts and Cultural Entrepreneurship was to design, develop and test an urban and land-based arts and culture training program for next-generation Indigenous talent, with the goal to incubate opportunities for sustainable self-employment.
This project supported our ability to develop sector-wide and cross-sector collaborations, partnerships, and networks to address the challenges urban and newly-urban Indigenous emerging artists faced during the Covid-19 pandemic. We were able to explore creative methods and sectoral approaches aimed at increasing digital and data literacy while supporting ongoing digital transformation of our program to better participate in arts sector activities.
Objectives
Key objectives in supporting professional development and organizational capacity building for arts services included:
- Building a resilient and healthy arts sector;
- Ensuring artists and other arts professionals have access to learning opportunities;
- Enhancing capacity building for arts organizations, in particular new groups, collectives and emerging artists;
- Promoting diversity and increased collaboration within the arts community.
With support of strategic innovation funding from the Canada Council for the Arts and its new Digital Greenhouse program, our project sought to capitalize on one specific opportunity and challenge: The increasing reliance and utilization of digital communication technologies and collaborative hardware/software solutions to connect physically remote locations with each other and major urban centers.
Recreating Environments of Inclusion
Recreating Environments of Inclusion: Northern Research, one of our first artsincubator.ca projects, was a unique, evolving audio visual series featuring the Inclusion in Northern Research knowledge exchange community; and debuts an equity and inclusion toolkit with tangible actions for research and impact creation communities, and their emerging, collaborative partnerships.
In this first installment debuting at ArcticNet Annual Scientific Summit 2021, Northern and Southern scientists, researchers, cultural impact creators and community builders outline experiential challenges and bridge their insights into required solutions for co-creating a collaborative impact movement to address planetary challenges being faced in the Arctic regions.
Thank you to our mentors at LembasWorks.
Canada's First National Kindness Week (2022)
Our project was proud to take part in a virtual news conference to celebrate the inaugural National Kindness Week. Introduced as a private member’s bill, Bill S-223, the Kindness Week Act became law in June 2021, designating the third week of February as National Kindness Week. Taking part in the news conference are Senator Jim Munson, who introduced the Act, as well as Michael Barrett (MP for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes), Emmanuella Lambropoulos (MP for Saint-Laurent), Shmuel Bulka (son of the late Rabbie Reuven Bulka, founder of Kind Canada), and Jamie Bell (Manitoba chair of Global Dignity Canada). Giovanna Mingarelli (CEO of M&C Consulting) and Jeff Turner (vice president of Kind Canada) also participate in the event. We remember the support Rabbi Bulka gave to our project, and his contributions to making our program possible.
Our first milestone was reached in December 2021. Not quite two months into our project, we were able to participate in our first exhibition and public presentation during the ArcticNet 2021 Annual Scientific Meetings. More than 1,200 people participated in this international Arctic conference.
Held virtually due to pandemic restrictions, our team’s first exhibition was titled ‘Recreating Environments of Inclusion.’ It featured a group dialogue on inclusion and the kinds of “hybrid values” we felt were important for working better across cultures.
This interactive series of interviews and facilitated conversations were shown across multiple days of the conference, after each day’s main plenary session, and highlighted the varied journeys of a diverse group of researchers, youth, Elders and community artists. The session focused on what it means to feel included in community-based arts and northern research.
More than 100 participants from across Canada and around the world took part in our national town hall session!
We are incredibly thankful to our mentors, Tara Baswani and Remi Lemieux from Montreal-based LembasWorks for making this incredible experience possible. We also thank the ArcticNet Network Centre of Excellence for making space in the conference for our project, and for supporting us along the way as we worked through the many challenges we faced.
Our Commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals
We are committed to contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by prioritizing participatory arts, research and community-driven projects that address issues related to poverty reduction, environmental sustainability, gender equality, and social justice. Our aim is to advance knowledge and understanding through interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaborations that support positive change and promote sustainable cities and communities.
Visit our SDG Tracker Page for more information.
Thank you to our partners and supporters
When our @1860 Winnipeg Arts collective started as a pilot arts incubator program in late 2021, we never thought we’d still be going almost four years later. We love to explore different aspects of the arts together with our partners and we can’t do it without support. From the flooding of our facility in June 2022, to the loss of almost everything we ever created, we didn’t give up and our partners and supporters were always there for us. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our generous partners, sponsors and supporters who have come on board since. Thank you all for making our @1860 Winnipeg Arts collective, the Arts Borups Corners Program and its digital arts and entrepreneurship projects possible.
