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HomeMy WebLinkAboutArts & Culture - 2015-06-16 ARTS AND CULTURE ADVISORY COMMITTEE (ACAC) MINUTES JUNE 16, 2015CITY OF KITCHENER PRESENT:Wayne Addison Judy Allred Mark Derro Danielle Deveau(4:20pm) Shirley Madill Shantal Myers Eric Rumble Dave Schnider Kristy Smith Kate Swift Sam Varteniuk Linda Zensner REGRETS:D. Morton STAFF:Krista Blake, Coordinator, Arts/Culture Carrie Kozlowski, Recording Secretary Frank Sargeant, Brand and Marketing Associate CALL TO ORDER: Kristy Smith 1.0Acceptance of agenda Agenda accepted as circulated 2.0Declaration of conflict of interest None DISCUSSION ITEMS 3.0Ideas of the Brave conversation (Kitchener Economic Development Strategy): Frank Sargeant Economic Development includes: Industry & Innovation(business support and development, incubator space, ensuring robust talent and a skilled labour force); Quality of Life(festivals, events, socialexperiences); Creative Industries(music, visual art, digital media, cultural amenities); City Building (development, industrial expansion, office construction,downtown residential projects, infrastructure, transportation) Kitchener’s economic development strategy is being updated this year (last updated in 2011).As part of the update, Ideas of the Brave is an innovative stakeholder engagement program consisting of staff, council and citizen-led conversations. Today, collecting ACAC’s opinions (individual, and on behalf of ACAC) 1.What do you like best about Kitchener? Economic diversity (not a single revenue generating town, manufacturing, tech, educational institutions)and diversity of population Affordable real estate Family programs Active involved communitymembers Biking as an asset 2.Think about the future of your profession/industry. What excites you? What worries you? Post-secondary education: declining youth population. Growing reliance on immigration for students;must address how to best serve diverse cultures. Secondary education: how to engageyouthto stay in the community and attend local post-secondary institutions. 1 June 2015-ACAC Minutes ARTS AND CULTURE ADVISORY COMMITTEE (ACAC) MINUTES JUNE 16, 2015CITY OF KITCHENER Education system is reducing subsidies for students’ participation in arts curriculum, thereby reducing opportunities for sector to grow. Arts/Culture sector: good energy around the arts, great initiatives and support. Challenge: ensuring sustainability of programs/initiatives. There’s a lot going on in the arts in Kitchener, but needa consistent critical mass of activity. People don’t know all the arts/culture programs and performances that are available. How to promote? Arts/culture should be a part of everyday life, not an event. Cultural workers:going other places with greater opportunities and pay. Cultural workers should be invited to work with Economic Development staff to determine how to integrate the value proposition afforded by the arts. Need to integrate pillar arts/culture organizationsinto everyday life. 3.What is one idea that would solve an economic development issue in Kitchener? Create a critical mass of activity to engage people when going out for an evening on the town. Need restaurants near performance venues, and more things to do after dining out. Cultivate a culture district, an outdoor livingroom, somewhere to hang out and participate, somewhere appealing to be. A cultural hubwith personality. Could be located within an existing framework: KPL, Centre in the Square and Registry theatre. Free parking. Cheaper rents. Increase the downtown population to improvesafety andactivate spaces. New residential will help. Improve the perception of the downtown. People are afraid to come downtown. Addressvacancies in downtown. Incentives for property owners? Could a Bylaw be used to discourage vacant spaces? Find a way to engage the tech sector (the innovation district)in what’s going on downtown. An‘eat downtown’promotion aimed at people in the suburbs. Consider why Market Village on Eby Street didn’t succeed and learn from that experience. Facilitate the community to build events from grassroots. Ensures engagement. Municipality shouldn’t do it. 4.Imagine a better Kitchener 10 years from now. What do you see? How do we get there? What could make the economy stronger? Enhanced quality of working life and life. Centralized,collaborative region-wide economic development strategy that uses best practices from across the region. More frequent Go Train service to Toronto. Improved and reasonably priced train service to other destinations outside our community. More frequent, more direct transit service in town (in addition to LRT). Shops open later, an enhanced after-work experience downtown. Keep conversation going; visit Ideas of the Brave web page. 4.0Committee Work Plan: Krista Blake Staff handed out a draft ACAC work plan based onACAC’s conversation about priorities at the January meeting, previous ACAC’s recommendations for priorities, and Arts/Culture unit’s work plan. 2 June 2015-ACAC Minutes ARTS AND CULTURE ADVISORY COMMITTEE (ACAC) MINUTES JUNE 16, 2015CITY OF KITCHENER Suggested areas of focus: arts/culture strategydevelopment, cultural entrepreneurship, arts programming and community partnerships. Draft plan aligns with Plan for a Healthy Kitchener and Kitchener Economic Development Strategy. The work plan is a tool Compass Kitchener wants committees to use to find opportunities for collaboration between the advisory committees. Chairs will attend a Compass Kitchener meeting next week to address. INFORMATION ITEMS 5.0Cultural Mapping: Danielle Deveau Research project in partnership with Creative Enterprise Initiative, Cities of Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge and Region of Waterloo (added complexity due to regional and municipal levels). Objective: address barriers to talent attraction/retention through analysis of art and culture resources and to enable planning through knowledge translation and data sharing. Definitions: Quality of Life:general well-being of society and individuals. Scenes: clusters of creative communities bounded by time and space. Vibrancy:intangible measure of creative energy, usually associated with urban cultural scenes. Aspect of economic development and downtown rebranding, integration of youth into regional cultural scenes, has significant commercial elements. Liveability:comfortable, endurable, worth living. Aspect of community, education, recreation and leisure, democratic access to services. Liveable and vibrant are not interchangeable; both required for growth and prosperity. 553 spaces sites and organizations mapped in 17 categories. Data is incomplete, but representative. Clear trends evident around dispersion and clustering of certain types of cultural spaces. Clustered amenities concentrated in commercial cores (Uptown, Downtown, Hespler, Galt, Preston) Categories of dispersed community spaces:Clubs halls, legions, community centres, community gardens, community organizations, libraries, markets, religious buildings. Attributes of dispersed community spaces:contribute to liveability of the region, especially important to families and newcomers, contribute to community support and integration, correlate strongly with recreational and educational services Categories of clustered cultural scenes: cafes, bookstores, galleries, heritage sites, live music venues, parks and squares, studios Attributes of clustered cultural scenes:contribute to feelings of urban vibrancy, need people to achieve vibrancy, often commercial and related to economic development, nightlife and street life important (festivals and live music venues). 6.0Public Art Working Group update: Shirley Madill In place of June PAWG meeting, members where encouraged to attend a lecture at KPL by Italian Architect Paolo Desideri“Form is Resource”. Had relevancy tolocal LRT project. Design as place-making. 7.0Downtown Action and Advisory Committee update: Linda Zensner DAAC receivedthe following presentations:Downtown programming, Ideas of the Brave (Kitchener Economic Strategy), and the Market. 3 June 2015-ACAC Minutes ARTS AND CULTURE ADVISORY COMMITTEE (ACAC) MINUTES JUNE 16, 2015CITY OF KITCHENER Food trucks: will not be in Zehr Square this year, instead Gaukel,Duke and Otto Streets. Food truck event will take place on July 4. 8.0Economic Development Advisory Committee update: Shantal Myers No update, committee didn’t meet. 9.0Council Report: Councillor Dave Schnider Centre in the Square, the Symphony and KW Art Gallery have successfully negotiated a mutually agreeable schedule for dates for the upcoming year—positive outcome. 10.0Members’ updates Pop Up Cityevent takes place June 27 starting at 3pm. Includes ‘Parkenheim’ (an art installation in the Duke Street Helix parking garage). Market piazza space and other locations will be programmed as well. Will feature games, gardening, balloon archery, maker expo crafting space, yoga, fitness, lantern making and lighting, scavenger hunt and musical performance. Night\Shift call for proposals for temporary art installations now out. This weekend is the Multicultural Festival, Summer Lights. ADJOURNMENT: The chair adjourned the meeting at 5:55p.m. NEXT MEETING: July 21, 4:00 p.m., Conestoga Room, ground floor, Kitchener city hall 4 June 2015-ACAC Minutes