Arts Council Wood Buffalo partners with various organizations to ensure that the arts are recognized as essential in creating a balanced community. Partnerships can be in many forms with artists, community organizations, industry and government through our Creative Connections program, Advocacy and Community Partnerships.
Looking for other ways to partner with Arts Council Wood Buffalo? Visit our Support Us page to learn more about the ways people and businesses can support Arts Council Wood Buffalo.
The Art of Conversation is a collaborative project by Arts Council Wood Buffalo and St. Aidan’s Society for
artists, seniors and Elders in the Wood Buffalo region.
Arts Council is paying to commission artists of various disciplines in the local community to engage in phone conversations with Wood
Buffalo’s isolated seniors and Elders. The artists and (optionally) seniors and Elders will then create new art inspired by the stories that
are shared.
The phone call and artists’ creation process will be documented to be shared through Arts Council communications, and the artist’s completed
pieces (e.g., song, short story, paintings, craft, and animation) will be shared with the senior and Elder with whom the piece was created.
The Suncor Student Art Awards and Kim Jenkins Student Art Scholarship were a collaboration between Suncor Energy, Arts Council Wood Buffalo, the Fort McMurray Public School District, and the Fort McMurray Catholic School District from 2014 – 2019. The purpose of the program was to increase the reach and impact of artwork created within the school system, build the confidence of emerging artists to exhibit their work, and provide financial investment in their continued development. Suncor hosted three student art exhibitions each year: one for Public High Schools, one for Catholic High Schools, and one for Jr. High Schools from both districts. Award recipients for each exhibition were selected through Suncor employee voting. The Kim Jenkins Student Art Scholarship was given to a Grade 12 student pursuing Visual Arts or Design at the Post-Secondary level the following year whose work in the annual high school exhibition at the MacDonald Island Community Art Gallery showed the most promise. The scholarship and two additional prizes were awarded through a professional visual artist jury. The program invested $24,000 in the development of youth visual artists over the past 5 years.
Arts Council Wood Buffalo partners with FuseSocial to make the annual Wood Buffalo Timeraiser event meaningful for visual artists, and to
ensure the arts are fairly represented and that best practices are followed. ACWB works with FuseSocial to help with the artist calls and
selection, installation of the exhibition, and the public event at the Kirschner Community Art Gallery.
For more information on the Wood Buffalo Timeraiser, visit fusesocial.ca/programs/volunteerism/timeraiser/
Arts Council Wood Buffalo partnered with the Wood Buffalo Food Bank to plan, organize and execute the annual Empty Bowls Festival, which
included artist performer and vendor calls. For three years ACWB helped build the capacity of WBFB and built the foundation for the program.
This successful partnership created an engaging community event and provided the WBFB with a toolkit to work with artists and create
sustainable fundraising initiatives that integrate the arts.
The Empty Bowls Festival is a family-friendly celebration of local talent in visual and performing arts and fine crafts. It draws the
community together and brings awareness to local hunger issues while also raising funds for the Wood Buffalo Food Bank. Guests purchase a
hand-crafted bowl made by the Fort McMurray Potters Guild and Colour Me Mine, and with that bowl make their way around the festival sampling
creations from several different local eateries. The artist marketplace, developed in partnership with Arts Council Wood Buffalo, features
local artisans selling their art and fine crafts (a portion of sales are donated back to the WBFB) as well as displays and demonstrations of
live visual arts and fine crafts. Throughout the day guests also enjoy live local performances.
For more information on the Empty Bowls Festival, visit the Wood Buffalo Food
Bank’s website.
The Redpoll Centre Public Art Commission project created an original piece of public art that is now a permanent part of the Alberta
Foundation for the Arts collection and is on display at the Redpoll Centre at Shell Place in Fort McMurray. ACWB received funding for the
project through the Alberta Foundation of the Arts (AFA) Public Art Commissions grant. Alberta visual artists or artist collectives working
in 2D or 3D, photography or fine craft were invited to respond to a Request for Expression of Interest. Through a two-round selection
process open to artists locally and across Alberta, an artist was chosen and the artwork was officially unveiled on September 29, 2017. The
artwork commemorates the opening of The Redpoll Centre, the shared social profit workspace managed by the United Way of Fort McMurray and
Wood Buffalo, reflecting the values of collaboration, innovation, creativity, courage and integrity.
Want to learn more? Click HERE to learn about the project.
