Manitoba – Minnesota Collaboration
This project contributes to building stronger Canada-US relations through the arts.
In the coming months, our project will be consolidating its efforts and highlighting what we have been able to achieve this year. Our plans are to deliver a second iteration in the form of a Winter program that will start in November 2022.
Our project began with the dream of creating a reusable and replicable model for synchronous online and in-person course that could support impelementation of a digital and cultural entrepreneurship incubator model. with support from the Canada Council for the Arts Digital Greenhouse program.
Many events were cancelled at the beginning of our project and we had to be constantly adapting. From this experience we were able to design and test new approaches, new topics that we’ve not studied before and to see if our model for an incubator could actually work.
This experimental project was a true STEAM project in that it engaged the traditional STEM disciplines with the arts, in this case, the arts of photography and filmmaking. The project engaged learners with key elements and evidence of climate science, tools and platforms for online delivery of courses and training, and went hands-on with local Winnipeg businesses to better understand how they are transitioning their entrepreneurship into the digital worlds.
Several of our students graduated this year, and are now attending college and university and the hybrid in-person and virtual approaches we’ve been using will continue to work well for us. Like these past ten months, this next year will see us continue to build up capacity.
We are very excited to have many of our collaborators interested in taking all of this work further, and using these experiences to continue new ways to support arts entrepreneurship through digital tools and technologies.
Manitoba and Minnesota: Creating Together
This project created short-term employment for both professional and emerging Indigenous artists at a time where many in the arts sector have not been able to advance their craft.
A key goal moving forward for our incubator project is to deepen the relationships between Minneapolis and Winnipeg. From the fur trade to designing a downtown skywalk system, urban realities and shared histories were pointed out across many conversations.
In the coming year, we hope to see more opportunities for urban Indigenous artists to hone their craft by participating in more activities, especially with places like the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
Arts entrepreneurship and cross-border collaborative research creation
This project also builds on work supported through the ArcticNet strategic process for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Our project team was honoured to have been able to participate in many consultations and engagement activities which helped shape development of this strategy and its resulting key performance indicators in 2020 and 2021. ArcticNet, one of the Networks of Centres of Excellence of Canada brings together scientists and managers in the natural, health, and social sciences with their partners in Inuit organizations, northern communities, federal and provincial agencies, and the private sector.
We are especially grateful for the support of Dr. Olaf Kuhlke, PhD from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design for facilitating so many of the conversations, activities and opportunities we’ve been able to explore this past year. As we exit the experimental stage of our incubator program and move to a new level, we look forward to being able to build on and nurture these valuable cross-border Canada-US collaborations into the future.
This experimental, Canada-US pilot program for digital arts and cultural entrepreneurship was made possible with financial investment from the following organizations and we gratefully acknowledge their encouragement and support.
