Welcome to Our New Website
Welcome to our new website! It is indeed a rapidly changing world, and workers in the arts sector are well practiced at adapting to new conditions. The shift to creating online and virtual events was a steep learning curve, but we did pivot several arts programs into digital (and easily accessible) content. At this Arts Centre, we are particularly lucky to have a small staff with an incredibly diverse skill set. Building a new website with a new perspective was the logical next step.
I am nearing 20 years of service to this organization, so am thinking more about abstract notions such as legacy and sustainability. The projects, exhibitions and programs that I am the most proud of have been ethereal - although many permanent community benefits came out of those activities. This new website will offer an archive of exhibitions with photographs and contributing artists so that we can look back and see what magical things have happened here.
Right now, I am so pleased to be presenting contemporary interdisciplinary arts events and activities, and this beautiful new format will help further those endeavours. The 2021 Pride Project will continue its groundbreaking activities both in-person and online, the upcoming Wharf Sessions album is an innovative take on the WOW program and its ability to get people up and moving, and the upcoming exhibitions in the Art Gallery are engaging artists on many different levels and encouraging challenging conversations.
As we recover and regenerate after the pandemic, it is my hope that we have built a more sustainable framework in which to deliver the best cultural services to the Shuswap. We’ve long been known to be running hard and fast from one under-resourced event to the next, but now we must learn to collaborate more, to share more and to help remake the sector for the next generation. Some of us (of a certain age) founded the very organizations we are running, and we cannot expect the next generation of artistic directors and curators to operate the same way we did. This is our chance to innovate for the next 20 years, and ensure our collective cultural experience remains dynamic, relevant and responsive to the world around us.
Tracey Kutschker, Director/Curator, Salmon Arm Arts Centre