Happy New Year! This week, we did not do very much except have a couple meetings because most people are still away on vacation.
Most of our discussions this week were centered around the Our People Our Climate initiative. This is an arts and storytelling program that combines traditional knowledge, digital arts, technology, and climate storytelling. We’ve been exploring it alongside other youth, artists and researchers from Northwestern Ontario, Minneapolis, and Nunavut for more than two years now. The program invites youth to understand and engage with issues of culture, creativity, and climate change through all sorts of arts.
Originally initiated as a documentary film project in 2019-2020, it was supported by Environment and Climate Change Canada and the University of Minnesota Duluth. Now, it continues to grow in different ways, reshaping how Indigenous youth engage with the arts and climate action, having a substantial effect on communities across Manitoba and beyond.
Thoughts for future internship and mentorship programs
Exploring the intersection of cutting-edge technology and traditional art forms is an interesting and innovative way to approach arts education. This week we learned some new skills in prompt engineering and how visual storytelling can be applied in different ways, from traditional art projects to digital marketing strategies.
For the last few months, we’ve been exploring the use of digital technologies for art production and communicating what we’re learning. This offers exciting possibilities for future programs. For example, we’re learning that virtual reality and augmented reality could be integrated to facilitate interactive art experiences, enabling interns to experiment with new forms of art creation and presentation beyond the traditional. Putting more of a focus on this area can help artists and arts organizations broaden their artistic skillsets, and it would help promote an adaptable mindset, which is much needed these days in the fast-evolving world of art. Meanwhile, storytelling can always be emphasized as one of the most powerful tools to communicate cultural experiences, personal perspectives, and social issues, encouraging artists to dig deeper into their own experiences and the world around them for inspiration.
What we learned this week
This week we learned about the importance of blending traditional, formal and informal education with modern arts and how we can support preparing youth for future roles in social development. For instance, the Our People Our Climate project, which targets youth and artists, is a transformative approach to art programs that support the convergence of culture, creativity, and climate change. We need to see more mentorship, apprenticeships, and workshops which engage emerging Indigenous artists, arts/cultural professionals, and Knowledge Keepers. More importantly, the program embraces community participation to explore new ways to create and even adapt works in progress to resonate with viewers across different backgrounds.
This is a kind of project worth exploring for Indigenous artists and art organizations, as it offers numerous possibilities for sponsorship and professional development. We saw that in the support the original Our People Our Climate received from Environment and Climate Change Canada and the University of Minnesota. In 2022 we did our own version here in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It’s the kind of project that is super useful for opportunities to publish our works and promote our unique narratives, and helps increase our visibility and influence in the broader art industry.