Skip to content

artsincubator.ca

Winnipeg, Manitoba Arts Incubator
  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Artists, Collaborators And Mentors
    • Art Borups Corners
    • Reports
      • 2023-2024 Report
      • 2021-2022 Report
    • Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Tracker
    • Resources
      • Entrepreneurship Resources
      • Framework for Recreation in Canada
      • Funding Programs and Sources
      • Parks for All
      • The Common Vision
  • Projects
    • Community Projects
    • Designing an Artist-in-Residence Framework
    • ECO-STAR North
    • Food Security
      • Towards a Framework for Northern Food Systems Innovation
        • Food Preservation Training and Curriculum Development
        • Relationship Development and Engagement with the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and University of Minnesota Duluth
        • Relationship Development and Engagement Activities with the University of the Arctic
      • The Art of Canning and Creative Entrepreneurship
    • Incubating Artificial Intelligence
      • Asteroids
      • Inuit Innovators
      • Spring Short Stories
      • Step Inside Your Content
    • Media Arts and Storytelling
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Artificial Intelligence News
    • Arts & Creative Leadership
    • Community Lens
    • Creative Entrepreneurship
    • Food Security and Innovation
    • Photos and Short Stories
    • Winnipeg
  • Events
    • ARTSPOT Under $100 Art Show in Winnipeg
    • Manitoba Events
    • Northwestern Ontario events
  • Support
    • Get Involved and Support
    • Sponsor & Partner
    • Volunteering
  • Contact
    • Submit Arts and Culture Stories, Articles and Events
    • Submission Guidelines
Home / Northwestern Ontario

Northwestern Ontario

The Arts Incubator works closely with artists and communities in Northwestern Ontario, building opportunities for creative development rooted in the realities of the North. Through workshops, mentorship, and digital platforms, the Incubator supports projects that reflect the cultural strength and resilience of the region. With the backing of the Ontario Arts Council, its programming uplifts both emerging and established artists, ensuring that the voices of Northwestern Ontario are connected, celebrated, and recognized within the wider Canadian arts landscape.

Splintered heartwood and darkened, rotting fibers mark the exact spot where gale-force winds twisted and broke this trunk.
Photos and Short Stories

Anatomy of a Fallen Giant

See what happened inside a tree snapped by last week’s storm, from growth rings to internal decay.
Read More →
Here's why toast is perfect: it knows things are going to get messy. Jam drips. Butter melts. Peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth. Toast doesn't judge. It just holds it all together long enough for you to take a bite. Our infrastructure is built on that same principle. Research in the arts is inherently sloppy—half-formed ideas, process artifacts, things that don't fit in boxes. The system isn't there to clean it up. It's there to catch it before it hits the floor.
Community Projects

The Infrastructure Is Toast

Toast, not hard hats: the lightweight infrastructure keeping our research network connected over time.
Read More →
Packing up the fabric scraps and trying to mentally prepare for early alarms again.
Winnipeg

Strong Stitches: A Community of Craft

We’re stitching together a strong community after a summer full of fun and learning. Keep Connected!
Read More →
After our first exploration visualized the messy-wonderful mixture of scrambled research roles, we're taking the next big step: figuring out the cognified governance and consortium models that make it all work together. Think of this next phase as adding the bacon to our scrambled eggs; it’s not just a side, but the essential, savory, and structured element that brings everything to its full potential and makes the whole experiment infinitely more complete.
Arts & Creative Leadership

What Happens When Scrambled Research Meets Cognified Governance?

Scrambled Research gets a new ingredient: cognified governance. We’re exploring what happens when intelligence and decision-making become networked.
Read More →
Real-world research rarely fits neatly into separate boxes, which is why this fall we’re exploring what might happen if we stopped trying to keep all the ingredients apart. With Scrambled Research, we’re experimenting with ways to bring community partners, artists, students, academics, organizations and other contributors into a more flexible research network, while asking what happens when roles, funding, expertise and knowledge can move in different directions. We’re not starting with a finished model or claiming we’ve figured it out; we’re curious about what becomes possible when the usual institutional boundaries get loosened, rearranged and tested. The fun part is seeing what emerges when we scramble the ingredients and let the research itself show us where it wants to go.
Community Projects

Scrambled Research: Rethinking the Boxes We Put Research In

What happens when research stops fitting neatly into institutional boxes? We're experimenting with Scrambled Research this fall.
Read More →
Ribbon Skirts With a Story
Arts Entrepreneurship

Ribbon Skirts With a Story

A community workshop teaches young makers dress design, sewing, and the art of the traditional ribbon skirt.
Read More →
Beyond organizational shifts, Canada is experiencing a quiet erosion of its grassroots civic infrastructure. Informal volunteer rates dropped to 66%, driven by a massive 40% decline in public meeting attendance and a 34% drop in local event coordination. This retreat from local problem-solving weakens the social fabric that helps communities remain resilient during crises. Re-engaging residents will require organizations to pioneer flexible micro-volunteering and modern participatory models.
Arts & Creative Leadership

Canada’s Civic Engagement Is Fraying — And What Community Organizations Can Do About It

From falling volunteer rates to concentrated giving, discover four strategic pathways for Canadian nonprofits to build resilience and capacity.
Read More →
Step onto the northern landscape and discover Labrador Tea—the iconic shrub with fuzzy leaves and a fragrant, pine-infused past that has fueled generations of gatherers from the boreal line to the open tundra.
Food Security and Innovation

From Tundra to Timberline: The Lasting Legacy of Labrador Tea

Long before coffee shops dotted the map, northern communities across the Arctic and subarctic relied on Labrador Tea.
Read More →
Artists with this year's summer arts incubator program show their newly painted creations.
Arts & Creative Leadership

When Bones Become Art

The fourth annual Summer Arts Program brought community members together to learn, create and paint animal bones and skulls.
Read More →
Weeks of collecting wild clay, birch bark sawdust, and wood ash reveal the hidden work behind our summer ceramics project.
Arts & Creative Leadership

The Work Before the Fire

Before the first pit fire, weeks of gathering, processing, and learning transformed local materials into future works of art.
Read More →

Posts pagination

1 2 3 … 37 Next »

Recent Posts

  • Anatomy of a Fallen Giant
  • Painting Workshops
  • The Infrastructure Is Toast
  • Ten Years Later: All Grown Up
  • Strong Stitches: A Community of Craft
Jukebox In Exile is the new country music album from Flin Flon singer-songwriter C.C. Trubiak, blending classic country, honky-tonk, Americana and traditional storytelling into a collection of songs inspired by resilience, community and life in Northern Manitoba. Written during and after the 2025 Flin Flon wildfire evacuation, the album draws influence from country music legends including Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings and George Jones. Featuring the singles "Old Country Songs," "Being Rich" and the charting track "Outlaws Meditation," Jukebox In Exile showcases Trubiak's signature songwriting while celebrating small-town life, northern Canadian culture, queer country music and the enduring spirit of Flin Flon. The album is available now on major music streaming platforms.
Manitoba's own C.C. Trubiak's new album "Jukebox in Exile" dropped on June 5! Check it out today!

Upcoming Events

WINNIPEG ARTS PROGRAMS

This platform, our Winnipeg, Manitoba hub and programs have been made possible with support from the Manitoba Arts Council Indigenous 360 Program. We gratefully acknowledge their funding and support in making the work we do possible.

Manitoba Arts Council Indigenous 360 Program

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Arts Incubator was seeded and piloted with strategic arts innovation funding from the Canada Council for the Arts Digital Greenhouse. We thank them for their investment, supporting northern arts capacity building and bringing the arts to life.

Canada Council for the Arts Digital Greenhouse Logo

NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO ARTS

This platform, our Northwestern Ontario hub and programs have been made possible with support from the Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects Program. We gratefully acknowledge their funding and support in making the work we do possible.

Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects Program
© 2026 Arts Incubator Winnipeg. All rights reserved.