The Nature of Rural Arts

It is a fundamental belief of mine that rural arts are different from urban arts, but in unexpected ways. We often are predisposed to think that rural arts are smaller-scale versions of arts activities in larger towns and cities, or that they are in some sense not professional in a mainstream sense. But in fact rural arts have a richness and complexity congruent with anything seen in larger centres, and have distinct characteristics that arise precisely because these activities happen in particular rural or community settings. Let me now give some examples of Canadian and other community arts projects that are clearly unique to their environments and demonstrate an intimate synthesis of community and professional artists.

Idyllic, rural, and quintessentially Canadian, each year the 4th Line Theatre Company presents outdoor plays imbued with local history and content, small town stories or broad national sagas. Their mandate is as follows: “[T]o preserve and promote our Canadian cultural heritage through the development and presentation of regionally based, environmentally staged, historical dramas…. Through this process we seek to encourage innovation and experimentation resulting in productions that entertain and educate.”

The Montreal-based Coleman-Lemieux & Compagnie’s (CLC) Dance in the Community projects are specifically designed to bring professional artists into rural communities. In 2004, they produced a collaboration between visiting dance artists and the ranching community of Val Marie, Saskatchewan entitled Grasslands: Where Heaven Meets Earth. The creative and training process culminated in an extraordinary dance performance involving both professional dancers and local citizens in the rolling hills of Grasslands National Park: a performance witnessed by a busload from Val Marie including community organizers, students from Val Marie School and Grasslands park staff, who drove four hours through a Saskatchewan snowstorm just to be there. And in July 2006, CLC descended upon the quiet and tiny village of Trout River, Newfoundland (population 688) to create The Gros Morne Project a site-specific collaboration between the tiny village and an artistic team of Canada’s finest dance artists.

An innovative Aboriginal northern audience development project, RING : Sioux Lookout Arts Circle - Idea Boxes, promotes local and regional art by establishing spaces for the creation and display of works in and around the community of Sioux Lookout, Ontario. This project addresses the local need to showcase and promote works of local artists who currently have few opportunities to exhibit. The Idea Boxes provide alternative spaces for the exhibition and creation of new works, inspire and expand the network of local artists, encourage the exchange of ideas and expose the community to exciting forms of creative expression. And, in efforts to recognize the importance of creative practice, participating artists receive artists’ fees – something not always understood in the north. Additionally, a cultural newsletter is published monthly and distributed within the community free of charge, with an open invitation for community creative writing and other cultural announcements.

Meanwhile, in Goderich, Ontario a recent project links the town’s history of extracting the salt remaining underground from a prehistoric sea with a new community arts endeavor. The Worth Their Salt project pairs up professional artists with non-arts community groups in workshops called Salt Blocks and has designed processes aimed at transforming social and personal challenges faced by girls and women in the community through the collection of images, sound and text, juxtaposing human with geologic history, using historical excerpts, photos, geological information and art processes using salt and copper.

Originally created as a one-time showcase for local filmmakers, the Weeneebeg Aboriginal Film and Video Festival of Moose Factory, Ontario, has evolved into an annual festival that is uniquely positioned as a community-driven, northern experience presenting works by established and emerging international Aboriginal artists with featured youth workshops and community events. Now in its fifth year, the festival showcases stories in various community centers that resonate with local issues, concerns and perspectives relative to the James Bay people which is contrary to many southern Ontario film and video festivals that cater to mostly filmmakers and industry people. The festival’s outreach component has evolved to promote media arts within the community and foster media arts as a viable career for the youth in local communities. This includes workshops by professionals in various filmmaking components such as animation, acting and creating a film/video, giving youth an exposure and introduction to the many forms of filmmaking.

South of the Canadian border, the Asheville, North Carolina craft network, HandMade in America, is known for its pioneering work researching and demonstrating cultural economic impact. Recognizing the need for partnership and collaboration among professional artists and the community in order to build a sustainable existence that benefits all, HandMade in America wanted to demonstrate the collective impact of the so-called “creative economy”. They first conducted a study, Mapping Creative Communities, of businesses residing in the heart of downtown Asheville in order to determine the percentage currently occupied by creative economies. Using this model, communities that have traditionally not had resources or seen themselves as advantaged, as well as those that have, can create an opportunity to learn, grow, and teach others about community revitalization. They then developed The Small Towns Program – a program of mentoring, technical assistance, self-help, and learning from each other and from neighbouring communities as documented in their Small Voices, Big Songs: A Story of American Renewal publication. One of their guiding principles, “Everyone is welcome to participate from the first-time hobbyist to the full-time, one-of-a-kind design professional craftsmen,” is especially pertinent to my talk today.

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