Culture Days Announcement

The BC Culture Days Task Force is pleased to announce that it has engaged the Alliance for Arts and Culture, through the Society to Bridge Arts and Community, to coordinate the 2011 BC Culture Days.

The Alliance's director of communications and special events, Kevin Dale McKeown, will take the role of BC coordinator of BC Culture Days, and Trudy Van Dop of Van Dop & Associates has been retained by the Alliance to serve as the BC Culture Days programmer.

British Columbia participated in Culture Days 2010 in a soft launch fashion, without a provincial organizer, with at least 75 BC organizations and individual artists taking part in the three days of open-house events and activities during the last weekend of September.  

“Today's news is an important step towards a coordinated BC participation in Culture Days 2011, which will take place September 30 and October 1 and 2” said BC Culture Days Task Force chair and Arts Umbrella president and CEO Lucille Pacey in making the announcement. “With the help of the Alliance and Ms. Van Dop we look forward to building on last year’s success, enlisting many more participants from across BC and attracting a wider audience to our events and activities” Ms. Pacey concluded.

“This is a wonderful opportunity to work together to promote the value of arts, culture and heritage activities to British Columbians” said Mr. McKeown. “We all know how important it is for us to develop relationships with our audiences and communities. This national initiative relies on the collaboration and solidarity of the arts community and all of civil society in general.”

“Culture Days is an exciting way for us to build on existing relationships and create new connections with our audiences and communities,” added Ms. Van Dop. “I see this as an opportunity for us to rally together over the long term for the health and stability of our sector, as well as to showcase the invaluable contribution artists and creators make to our province, our culturally diverse communities, and to all our citizens.

“We are well positioned to connect with BC’s cultural creators, transitioning from August’s BC Cultural Crawl into September’s BC Culture Days celebrations,” concluded Ms. Van Dop.

What Is Culture Days?

Culture Days is an annual Canada-wide event, initiated in 2010, that invites people to celebrate and explore arts and culture in every province and territory in Canada. It represents the largest-ever collective public participation campaign undertaken by the arts and cultural community in this country. A collaborative volunteer movement, Culture Days seeks to raise awareness and engagement by all Canadians in the arts and cultural lives of their communities.

During Culture Days participating groups and municipalities are encouraged to provide cost-free opportunities for the public to learn more about their particular cultural activity.

Cultural groups can open their doors to the public to provide interactive cultural experiences ranging from holding an open house, providing demonstrations for school groups, offering opportunities to learn about a particular cultural heritage. Individual artists can open their studios to the public and provide demonstrations and hands-on experiences.

Participants might choose to give behind the scenes guided tours, hold workshops, or give public performances.

The opportunities to promote cultural activity in British Columbia are endless!

Culture Days is supported by the Canadian Arts Summit in collaboration with Culture pour tous (producer of Quebec's Journées de la Culture), The Banff Centre and with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Participating In Culture Days 2011

Anyone who wants to can be involved! 

Any cultural or heritage group or individual artist willing to provide one or more free and interactive, cultural experiences that are open to the public during the weekend of September 30 and October 1 & 2 can register their event in the Culture Days database at www.culturedays.ca 

Sign up at www.culturedays.ca for general Information about Culture Days activities in your community or to receive details on how your organization can register.

Event organizers can also contact BC Culture Days programming director Trudy Van Dop at bcprogramming@culturedays.ca.

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