- Henk

Culture is the connective tissue that binds humanity together.

Public engagement in the arts is a crucial aspect of sustaining a thriving arts community, which in turn fosters a healthy economy and social environment for the whole country. For the past three years, the Canada Council for the Arts has been focusing on developing a broader conversation on how to engage people more fully in the arts and in the cultural life of their communities.

Among the interventions undertaken by the Council are new artistic collaborations, innovative exhibitions and screenings, public readings, market development grants, grants that allow organizations to advance their audience outreach and cultural mediation practices, and much more.

In its discussion paper on public engagement published on October 16, 2012, the Council writes that its primarily focus is to ensure that “artists remain at the center of its interventions and that the public has access to the highest quality artistic experience. This focus is important in staking out the territory that the Council can influence directly and allowing it to partner with other stakeholders who intervene in other areas of practice. The Council is not a sole actor in this arena and cannot succeed alone.”

According to the Council, its approach to public engagement means highlighting “the contribution that art and artists make to everyday life.” And “in the process it will find direct and indirect ways to help artists and arts organizations deepen and expand their engagement with audiences.” The National Congress on Culture “The Art of Engagement. Finding, Igniting, and Keeping Audiences,” taking place in Toronto on May 24, will present such an opportunity where the Council along with other stakeholders will elaborate on this subject.

Mr. Robert Sirman, Director and CEO of Canada Council for the Arts, will deliver one of the Congress’ keynote speeches. During his presentation, Mr. Sirman will speak to the challenges of the artists and arts organizations funded by the Canada Council for the Arts to “find, ignite and keep audiences”, a subject not only consistent with the theme of the National Congress but also with a larger strategy undertaken by the government and numerous arts and cultural organizations across Canada.

Read more about the Discussion Paper by the Canada Council for the Arts here.
Learn more about the Congress, the program and the speakers here.

According to Peter Howell, who wrote the Toronto Star profile, Mr. Jacob "doesn't fear change; he manages it." Case in point, 25 years ago, Mr. Jacob's friends were looking at the VCR, predicting the movie theatre business would soon go under, asking why he (Mr. Jacob) was getting into the cinema theatre business. "'And 25 years later,'" says Mr. Jacob, "'we had our best year ever.'"

Total revenues for Cineplex in 2012 were nearly $1.1 billion, an increase of 9.4 percent from the previous year. There were 71.2 million theatrical admissions, an increase of 7.8 percent from the 66.1 million of the previous annum.

The company did this without exploiting ticket prices, which are actually lower than they used to be in at least one key category.

Given the fears and challenges that people sometimes feel the arts and cultural landscape is facing, Mr. Jacob's keynote speech is bound to offer some uplifting and stimulating food for thought.

Mr. Jacob, how would you turn Canadian arts and culture into a [bigger, growing] success - frame by frame, community by community? What are some strategies that might translate well - from attracting people to cinematic experiences to strengthening and diversifying audiences for the rest of the cultural pantheon?

Does taking a day out of your busy schedule to sit back, listen, chat, discuss, provoke and ask questions seem... luxurious? Do it! Yes! You know it will be invigorating. You deserve it. Limited seats still available here. Or check out the Live Stream.

Amidst the busy pre-event coordination and planning, I keep getting little flashbacks to early 2009, when Culture Days was just an idea, when it didn't have a name yet, when I was meeting David Moss, the national director, for the first time. I'd take you on a trip down memory lane, but it looks like Culture Days has already done that - by re-publishing excerpts from an old talk I gave in 2010. It's weird reading your words, your own ideas back, a bit out of context, but I'm told it's a good, funny piece. Let me know what you think. Full text available here.

Later this week, I'll be blogging more about who's speaking and what's happening at the Congress. For today, here are some tips on making sure you're part of the inaugural National Congress next week, from wherever you are in the country:

1. Visit the Live Stream page here. Click "Follow" (green button middle of the page) so you can get an email reminder before the Live Stream starts with a link to the Live Stream page. You might want to also check the program schedule to make sure you don't miss your favourite speaker or panel.
2. On the day of the Congress, make sure you login on the Live Stream page at least 10 minutes before the speaker or panel you'd like to catch goes on. Sometimes you'll realize you need to update your web browser or your Flash video player, so it's just nice to get yourself set up a few minutes ahead of time. In fact, if you check the page out the day before the Congress, you may see some funny pre-Congress shenanigans. (I'll be testing the system out for the first time - should be entertaining.)
3. Again, to view the Live Stream, you'll only need to visit the Live Stream page. The video should start up automatically. It may initially take a few minutes to load (if you ever stream television on your computer you already know all about this initial wait time). But not to worry, the image will come soon. Watch closely. Elves may appear. (That's a joke. There are no elves. Unless you mean the green one on the left.)
4. When you feel inspired and want to comment or respond to the panel discussion, or to ask questions, you'll need to log in. You can sign in using just your Facebook login or your email address. It's that simple.
5. Lastly, if you prefer to tweet, you can join the discussion by using the hashtag: #CultureDays

I'll be at the Congress in-person, and hosting the virtual discussion on the Live Stream. Hope to see you there – one way or another!

Helen Yung was previously the founding community engagement manager for Culture Days. She is also an artist. You can read her bio and view her work at www.helenyung.com.

Check out the panelists who will share their experiences, challenges, successes and the impact of their efforts - sure to be a lively and insightful session!

Louise Sicuro, President & CEO of Culture pour tous and Producer of the annual Journées de la culture event across Québec will share her in depth experience, lessons learned and impacts observed over the past 17 years since the inception of the annual Journées de la culture event. In particular, Ms. Sicuro will speak to Culture pour tous’ highly regarded leadership in the burgeoning field of Cultural Mediation and how the variety of programs developed by her organization have made inroads with the public sector, business community, educators, artists and cultural organizations and other stakeholder groups in Québec.

Jean Giguère, Chair Emeritus of Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Co-chair of the Culture Days Manitoba Task Force and national Executive Committee, Mrs. Giguère will speak to the strategies and diverse partnerships established to effectively mobilize the Winnipeg and Manitoban community. Hear how existing partnerships were strengthened, brand new collaborations forged and some traditional boundaries crossed.

Liesl Jauk, Manager of Cultural Development for the City of Richmond, BC will speak to why, and how her city embraced Culture Days as a perfect opportunity to inspire a much-anticipated annual event for artists and citizens each year. Hear about the partnerships, resources and valued post-event impacts Culture Days generates for citizens, artists, organizations and partners alike.

Rosemary Polegato, MBA, PhD, Professor of Marketing at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick has been invited to speak at international conferences on the value of community-based learning through the arts. Each year since Culture Days inception in 2010, Ms. Polegato has spearheaded an innovative Culture Days collaboration that brings her Arts and Cultural Marketing students, artists and local retailers together for an annual Culture Days project that generates tremendous excitement and opportunities for all participants, the media and public.

Shannon Thunderbird, President and Artistic Director of Teya Peya Productions, a First Nations Arts/Education company will recount her successful experience participating in the innovative CultureDays@TheLibrary program, working with the Toronto Public Library/Neighbourhood Arts Network partnership. A well-known advocate, Ms. Thunderbird will also speak to how she is breaking down traditional barriers to promoting First Nations creative work, the hurdles she encounters and successful touch points.

Danica Lorer, one of four Culture Days Animateurs employed by SaskCulture will share the challenges and opportunities she experienced when engaging communities in her province for the annual Culture Days celebration using her storytelling talents.

In 2012, Ontario artists, arts and cultural organizations and community groups volunteered and offered more than 1,500 interactive activities to an enthusiastic public of 480,000 Ontarians. This gift of culture from the province’s arts community took place in 221 cities and towns across the province representing a 63 per cent growth in activities in just 3 years. If the trend continues in 2013, the fourth annual Culture Days will be even bigger.

“Culture Days is an exciting opportunity for communities across the province to showcase, celebrate and share their unique artistic identities,” said Michael Chan, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport. “Through public engagement, our artists and our cultural workers are generously sharing their great gifts and incredible talents that will inspire the next generation of artistic innovators in Ontario.”

Event Details

More than 20 information sessions are taking place in communities across Ontario hosted by community arts councils and municipalities. Ontario Culture Days staff will share tools, tips and resources to Culture Days activity organizers while encouraging networking and collaboration in the community. Everyone is welcome; information sessions bring together artists, arts and cultural groups, municipal cultural staff, community arts councils, business improvement associations, local media and other people interested in forging collaborations to organize Culture Days 2013 activities. All information sessions are free to attend.

“Hosting these learning events is one of the many activities that volunteer Community Organizers engage in to make Culture Days happen across the breadth of this great province,” said Warren Garrett, Chair of the volunteer task force for Ontario Culture Days. “These sessions provide a golden opportunity for activity organizers to learn effective engagement practices.”

The following information sessions have been scheduled:

Province-Wide Webinar Offered

No information session scheduled in your area? Don’t worry. Ontario Culture Days will be holding a province-wide webinar on June 18, 6:00pm – 7:30 pm for anyone interested in participating in or supporting Culture Days who is unable to attend an info session in person. Registration information will be available soon on our website.

About Culture Days

Culture Days invites everyone to explore, discover and participate in arts and culture in every community across the country. In 2012, the third annual Culture Days event presented nearly 7,000 activities in more than 850 Canadian cities and towns, with attendance topping 1.6 million Canadians.

This year’s Culture Days weekend will take place on September 27, 28 and 29, 2013. Once again, the event will feature free, hands-on, interactive activities that invite the public to participate “behind the scenes”—and to discover the world of artists, creators, historians, architects, curators, and designers at work in their community.

Registration is now open. To register a Culture Days activity or to see who has already joined the movement, visit www.culturedays.ca.

For more details about Ontario Culture Days announcements please visit: www.on.culturedays.ca.   Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube.

Culture Days in Ontario is supported by the Ontario Arts Council, the Ontario Trillium Foundation and the Government of Ontario in recognition of Celebrate the Artist Weekend.

For more information about Culture Days in Ontario:

Catherine McLeod
Ontario Culture Days Interim Manager
on@culturedays.ca
(647) 258-5079
1-800-387-0058 ext. 5079

Cultural engagement and arts participation, regardless of what form it takes, are the catalysts for Culture Days. In this first part of a chapter originally published in "Pluralism in the Arts in Canada," Helen Yung navigates the theory and the practice inherent in enabling Canadians to take culture, sometimes literally, into their own hands.  

Helen Yung, whose specialties include cultural diversity and community engagement, makes installations, interactions and interventions, including storytelling, scenography, technology, and experiences like humour, delight and surprise. You can follow her foibles at www.helenyung.com or on Twitter @helenyung.

If I were junk mail, I would appear in your inbox with variations on the following subject lines:

• "How to increase your audience size by 300% overnight!"
• "Make $100K a year without going to the office!"
• "Audience diversification! Audience engagement! Results guaranteed!"
• "HEY! R U THERE?"

I am not junk mail but when I was invited to speak at Magnetic North Theatre Festival several years ago on “Presenting Paradigms in Globalized Canada,” I had considered making a number of such far-fetched-sounding promises at the outset of my (brief) talk. I had been asked to speak on “cultural mediation,” and its connection to a new campaign rippling across Canada, known as Culture Days.

A voluntary campaign to promote public participation in arts and culture, Culture Days was making its debut that September 2010, in over 300 communities across the country. At the time, I was the community engagement manager for Culture Days, half of a team of two hired by a volunteer steering committee, tasked to beg, borrow and inspire a groundswell of self-organized participation in every province and territory.

I remember when CPAMO launched with its first multi-year support from the Trillium Foundation. We were out in Scarborough, in a university auditorium. I was live tweeting the plenary session, or else I would have found a wall and knocked my head repeatedly on it. Over and over again, we heard artists and festival directors affirm that audiences love opportunities to dialogue around the art. Audiences want to participate and be involved. This is how we build audiences.

The affirmation was wonderful, but frustrating: My research at Culture Days had aggregated similar information. Knowing as we do that audiences love and enjoy these outreach, educational, audience development, participatory activities, why do we still so often insist on maintaining them as peripheral, ancillary add-ons to our main cultural programs? (To be clear, my frustration was with myself, and rampant conformity within the system, not with the speakers or CPAMO.)

People make and read content on cellphones, drift on the Internet, shop online and in brick-and-mortar stores, garden, cook and dine out like gourmands, blog, make videos and trouble to photo-document all these forms of self-expression. This is culture. This is how the general population expresses its values, fears, hopes and dreams daily. The whole world, indeed even we arts workers all participate in a vibrant popular culture that seems often unconnected with our Arts and Culture.

A joint initiative between civic leaders, cultural institutions, arts councils, and government, Culture Days was established as an annual national campaign to revitalize relations between the daily lives of Canadians and the arts and cultural scene in our communities.

The Culture Days vision places the typically peripheral outreach, educational, audience development, and participatory arts programs at centre, declaring these interactions the focus and delight of the event. These types of interaction, which include workshops, live demonstrations, artist talks, lectures, classes, guided tours, open rehearsals, Q&As, hands-on experiences, and collaborative art projects, are what francophone Canadians call “la mediation culturelle” or “cultural mediation.”

As a fairly new term and concept that has made its way over from France, cultural mediation is unfamiliar to most anglophone Canadians. In essence, cultural mediation is a newly-defined (but already often-practiced) field of work devoted to mediating (negotiating, facilitating, creatively supporting) the relationship that the public has with Culture. Much more literature in English can be found on cultural democratization and cultural democracy – two areas of work which cultural mediation gathers under its expansive tent.

Historically, the field of cultural mediation was primarily about cultural democratization - creating access to cultural products or artifacts. Museums and galleries offering free admission to the public is an example of a cultural democratization initiative. Free admission means more people are able to access the cultural artifacts housed inside these cultural institutions.

Access, however, is defined in the broadest of terms; cultural democratization initiatives need not be limited to reducing economic barriers. Artist talks or mini lectures, for example, are other examples of cultural democratization projects that help demystify the art and reduce perceived knowledge barriers.

Over time, the term cultural mediation broadened to include efforts aimed at fostering cultural democracy. At bottom, cultural democracy is about who gets to create or produce Culture. Community arts and participatory arts are projects that foster cultural democracy, wherein citizens are encouraged to participate in and express themselves.

In sum, cultural mediation refers to a great range of practices, which are more frequently known in anglophone Canada as outreach, audience development, participatory arts and community arts.

Putting these cultural mediation activities front and centre, the Culture Days vision is spectacular and transformative: Imagine three days when people across the country will find arts and cultural activities available to them everywhere – for free, just around the corner. If you don’t go find it, they will come find you -- in the streets or perhaps even at your place of work.

Not only are these activities artistic and cultural, but they are interactive and participatory. As an audience-participant, you are promised a friendly, welcoming environment where you will not be bored but engaged. Literally. You will be invited to sing, dance, play, read, act, experiment, explore, design, consider, question, and share.

The question remains, however, if cultural mediation is, in fact, another name for outreach, audience development, participatory arts and community arts – things that we already do – what difference does Culture Days make? Why should we care about Culture Days? What can it mean for us?

First, as I’ve said before, Culture Days takes those outreach, audience development, community engagement, and participatory projects that are typically peripheral add-ons for most organizations, and makes it the focal point of this coast-to-coast-to-coast event. The whole weekend program for Culture Days consists of only cultural mediation activities.

What this means for individual artists and cultural workers is that the Culture Days weekend is about real-life interactions with the public. Meeting with the public in small, intimate gatherings to share your studio, your artistic processes, show people what you do and where you do it, and to invite them to speak their minds, enter into an exchange with you – these 1-to-1 interactions create value through communication.

Culture Days is not about another grant, another project, another thing that generates paperwork or requires meetings. Get back to basics.

During Culture Days, take your art to the park, to the streets, to the mall, or into public transit, and dare to have a conversation with a stranger about it.

Stay tuned for the second part of this story in the upcoming weeks where Helen shares her ideas on how to increase your audience size by 300% overnight...

To find out more about Helen's project on re-imagining performance and public engagement, please follow this link... 

And visit Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives website to purchase a wonderful book where the full article was published: Pluralism in the Arts in Canada: A Change is Gonna Come. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

Since Culture Days began in 2010, SaskCulture has hired artists from various disciplines to travel across the province to contact local community planners, libraries, museums and artists to help brainstorm and build community support for Culture Days.

"It was certainly an adventure to experience the passion of Saskatchewan as it exists in the talents, tales and heritage of communities," says Danica Lorer, a storyteller and 2012 Culture Days Animateur. She adds, "Volunteers were amazing wherever I went and I believe in the heart of Culture Days in Saskatchewan. We are a province with so much to share."

Along with Lorer, the Culture Days Animateurs in 2012 were children’s entertainer Sylvia Chave, musician Vincent Houghtaling and actor/musician Erroll Kinistino. Each Animateur focused on a particular area of the province.

Culture Days, held the last weekend in September each year, is a collaborative, pan-Canadian movement that aims to raise awareness, accessibility, participation and engagement by all people in the cultural life of their local communities.

One of the main goals of Culture Days is to encourage community organizers to offer interactive cultural activities. As artists, Animateurs are experienced in engaging audiences and are eager to share their passion for creativity. They are able to help organizations brainstorm and plan interactive activities.

This year, Animateur Sylvia Chave wrote a customizable Culture Days song called the Dream Team Song. People were able to download the song, music and lyrics and write their own verses. "I think the song was a wonderful vehicle to engage people," says Chave. She adds:

"Music really does create community. Watching all the kids creating their own actions and lyrics was one of my favourite moments, I never got enough of it."

Lorer approached her term as an Animateur with a storytelling perspective. Her workshop was entitled Words, Webs and a Story Unwinds. She would begin by explaining how an entire story can grow from only one word, then, pass out ribbons and beads with one word on them. Participants were asked if they could think of a story about the word on their bead. After the stories were shared, the ribbons were weaved together to create web of intersecting stories. She says:

"The stories that grew out of the activity were remembered tales from childhood, memories and original and creative pieces born on the spot."

Both Houghtaling and Kinistino engaged several areas of the province. Houghtaling focused on the southern part of the province participating in several events including the Windscape Kite Festival in Swift Current, the Festival of Words in Moose Jaw and the Spiralling Forces Festival in Regina. Kinistino shared the Culture Days opportunity with First Nations leaders. "I really enjoyed the opportunity to travel throughout the province, make new connections and tell them about Culture Days," says Kinistino.

Lorer hopes that she will have left a lasting impression with the communities she visited during her time as an Animateur. She remarks:

"I think I have planted a few seeds and that Culture Days will continue to grow in this province. My own heart will always be grateful for the experience of being a Culture Days Animateur."

For more information about Culture Days, visit www.culturedays.ca

You can hear Sylvia Chave's Dream Team Song by visiting www.saskculture.sk.ca

Photo credit: SaskCulture

“Thunderbird Native Theatre had a great Culture Days activity at Kennedy/Eglinton library. We were supported by an enthusiastic head librarian and had a very involved culturally diverse audience, who laughed, sang, clapped and played the big pow wow drums with happy abandon. We certainly plan to be back next year!”

Toronto Public Library, the Neighbourhood Arts Network and Ontario Culture Days are pleased to continue Culture Days @ The Library for a third year. This exciting partnership was created to help artists and arts groups share their creative work with the public. In the first 2 years of the program more than 4,000 Torontonians have enjoyed the work of 100 artists and cultural groups in 66 library branches across the city. Now in its fourth year, Culture Days is a pan-Canadian celebration of arts and culture. For more information, visit www.culturedays.ca.

Toronto Public Library is offering free venues to Toronto-based artists and cultural groups wishing to be part of Culture Days on September 27-28, 2013. This partnership enables artists to take their practice out of their private studios into the accessible spaces of library branches so that the public can discover and engage with their work. Past participants describe Culture Days @ the Library as a great opportunity to connect with new audiences and to build strong community relationships. From Etobicoke to Scarborough, North York and downtown Toronto, some 40 TPL branches spanning the city will provide venues at no cost.

Toronto-based individual artists, small and medium-sized professional arts groups as well as volunteer-run cultural organizations, collectives or groups that wish to organize their events at a Toronto Public Library branch are invited to submit an application by April 15, 2013. Activities in all artistic disciplines are encouraged as well as those that appeal to families and audiences of diverse ages. To be considered for a space, the arts activity must be free and interactive.

Toronto Public Library staff will review the applications, make their selections and contact activity organizers directly for any additional information they may require and to make arrangements. Library branches are providing free space but cannot provide any financial assistance, including funds for supplies or equipment. Participants do receive administrative, marketing and promotional support for their activity via the joint efforts of Culture Days, Toronto Public Library and Neighbourhood Arts Network.

40 Toronto Public Library Branches Open their Doors

“The Culture Days @ the Library program was a wonderful opportunity to work with the public and a fantastic chance to meet so many creative members of the library community. I especially appreciated the positive support from library staff and their enthusiastic response to the program I created.”

The following branches have committed to hosting Culture Days activities. The majority of activities will be scheduled on Saturday, September 28, with a limited number scheduled on Friday, September 27. For location and details about each branch, go to http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/hours-locations/index.jsp

Participating Branches

How to Participate

A simple application form is now on-line. Applications will be accepted from now until April 15, 2013.

Applicants will be matched with the appropriate library branches based on the suitability and interactive nature of the activity. Those applicants who meet the criteria will be contacted by Toronto Public Library Branch Heads in May to discuss in detail their activity and may be required to submit further information related to space requirements, equipment, etc.

Notification and Confirmation

Branches will send out a confirmation email by May 30, 2013.

About Culture Days

Culture Days is a collaborative, Canada-wide volunteer movement to raise the awareness, accessibility, participation and engagement of all Canadians in the arts and cultural life of their communities. Launched in 2010, the annual Culture Days event takes place in more than 850 Canadian cities and towns during the last weekend of September, generating an extraordinary amount of enthusiasm in the process. This year’s Culture Days weekend will take place on September 27, 28 and 29, 2013. Once again, the event will feature free, hands-on, interactive activities that invite the public to participate “behind the scenes”— and to discover the world of artists, creators, historians, architects, curators, and designers at work in their community. To learn more, please visit www.culturedays.ca

 Culture Days in Ontario is supported by the Ontario Arts Council, the Ontario Trillium Foundation and the Government of Ontario in recognition of Celebrate the Artist Weekend. 

About Toronto Public Library

Toronto Public Library is the world's busiest urban public library system. Every year, 19 million people visit our branches in neighbourhoods across the city and borrow 32 million items. To learn more about Toronto Public Library, visit our website at torontopubliclibrary.ca or call Answerline at 416-393-7131. To get the most current updates on what's happening at the library, follow us on Twitter @torontolibrary.

About Neighbourhood Arts Network

Neighbourhood Arts Network is the place where arts and community engagement meet. Neighbourhood Arts Network helps artists and community organizations do what they do best: enrich Toronto and transform it into a more vibrant, beautiful, and liveable city. We catalyze new relationships and conversations, collect research and share information. We envision a Toronto where all residents are empowered to discover and shape the cultural life of their communities. Neighbourhood Arts Network is a signature initiative of Toronto Arts Foundation. To learn more, please visit www.neighbourhoodartsnetwork.org

For more information about Culture Days @ The Library, please visit www.on.culturedays.ca.

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