The Rural Arts Inclusion Lab is a project that was created to address the lack of diversity and inclusion in arts organizations, audiences and performers in rural British Columbia.
This three year place- based project is a partnership between the Nelson Civic Theatre Foundation and the Tiny Lights Festival and is supported by a systems change grant from the Vancouver Foundation.
Gathering as many perspectives as possible, we will be modelling a Social Innovation Lab and will be using this website to document our process so that any rural arts organization can follow along. It is our hope that though sharing of information we can have application beyond our specific geographic region.
This project is centred in the West Kootenays we acknowledges our respect for and deep gratitude to the First Nations on whose traditional territories we are honoured to operate.
We want to hear about your experiences.
We recognize that there are many perspectives in our community we want to hear as many voices as possible and we want to address challenges. Please contact us !
Where did this project originate?
In Spring 2019, Vancouver Foundation and the BC Arts Council partnered to offer the Arts and Social Innovation Cohort Program to arts and culture organizations interested in developing social innovation projects. They invited 12 project teams from across BC looking to address barriers to equity, diversity, and access in the arts by exploring the concept and methodologies of social innovation and how to apply it to their projects.