Working Well Together: Arts-Based Research and the Cultural Future of Small Cities

This article offers a research update on a three-year program initiated by the Kamloops Art Gallery and the University College of the Cariboo in Kamloops, British Columbia. The program is supported by a "Community-University Research Alliance" grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the collaboration focuses on the cultural future of small cities---on how cultural and arts organizations work together (or fail to work together) in a small city setting. If not by definition, then certainly by default, "culture" is associated with big city life: big cities are equated commonly with "big culture"; small cities with something less. The Cultural Future of Small Cities research group seeks to provide a more nuanced view of what constitutes culture in a small Canadian city. In particular, the researchers are exploring notions of social capital and community asset building: in this context, "visual and verbal representation," "home," "community," and the need to define a local "sense of place" have emerged as important themes. As the Small Cities program begins its second year, a unique but key aspect has become the artist-as-researcher.Not peer reviewedResearch articleCommunity-University Research Alliances (CURA