Our Place, Our Story
Down by the water in many northern towns, there’s an old fishing boat. It hasn’t moved in years, its hull a patchwork of rust and faded paint, the name on its bow barely legible. It’s easy to see it as junk, an eyesore against the treeline. But that boat is a library. It holds stories of seasons on the lake, of the family that owned it, of the day it was finally pulled from the water for good. We’ve already talked about learning to truly see these details in our communities. Now, it’s time to take the next step: to learn how to read them, to understand that these landmarks are not just scenery, but the very syntax of a story only we can tell.
Go Beyond the Postcard View
Every town has its postcard view—the waterfall, the historic main street, the dramatic sunset over the lake. It’s tempting to recreate these because they are beautiful and instantly recognizable. But the true DNA of your community, the thing that makes it different from any other place on earth, is found in the imperfections. It’s in the hand-painted sign on the general store, the worn path cutting across a field that isn’t on any map, or the specific way the streetlights hum on a cold night. Your job as a storyteller is to move beyond documenting the picturesque and start translating the character of your home. Instead of painting the perfect shoreline, create a piece about the handmade dock with the crooked piling, the one everyone knows was fixed by old Mr. Henderson after the big storm of ’98. That single detail holds more narrative power than a thousand generic landscapes. It embeds your work with a unique sense of place that is authentic and deeply felt.
Use Local History as Raw Material
Your community’s history isn’t locked away in a museum; it’s written all over the landscape. It’s in the foundations of a long-gone cannery, the names on the headstones in the old cemetery, the architectural style of the houses on a particular street. This history is your raw material, a free and endless supply of themes, characters, and conflicts. This isn’t about creating a dry historical record. It’s about letting the past breathe through your work. Try creating a series of portraits inspired by archival photographs, imagining the inner lives of the subjects. Consider an interdisciplinary arts project using salvaged wood from a defunct mill to build a sculpture that speaks to the town’s industrial past. By weaving these historical threads into your art, you create work that resonates on a deeper level. It becomes part of a continuing conversation between the past and the present, connecting your audience to the cultural memory that shapes their lives.
Make Your Hometown Your Gallery
Who says art belongs only on a white wall? When your work is born from the community, one of the most powerful things you can do is place it back into that community. Think of your town not just as your muse, but as your exhibition space. This is the heart of place-based art. Imagine a sound installation that plays recordings of local elders’ stories as people walk past the old community hall, or a temporary sculpture installed in the park that changes with the seasons. You could project a film onto the side of the grain elevator or create a series of poems stamped into the mud along the riverbank. When art appears in these unexpected public spaces, it does something magical. It breaks down barriers and invites people into a conversation. It turns a simple walk to the post office into an encounter with creativity and shared history, reminding everyone that our stories, and our art, belong right here.
That old boat by the shore isn’t an obstacle to your creativity; it’s an invitation. Your town isn’t a place you create in spite of; it’s the reason your voice is unique. By embedding its stories, its history, and its very soil into your work, you do more than make art. You affirm that this place, your place, matters.
This summer, our arts program is a vibrant hub empowering artists and the arts sector across Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Northwestern Ontario. Our focus is on providing professional development and storytelling opportunities, which includes taking a deep dive into a different story every single Thursday. We’ll explore how these narratives are told, what we can learn from them, and how they can inspire our own creative work. Our program was originally seeded in 2022 with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts Digital Greenhouse. Now in our third season, this summer’s program is made possible thanks to the support of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the Ontario Arts Council, whose funding is helping to support this season’s valuable mentorship and internship program.
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