Prepare to be scanned.
An intensive inventory of the Coast's arts and cultural groups, individual artists and their services and facilities is underway this spring, says cultural scan project manager Francine Lucas.
"Others have been done," says Lucas, "but none have been as comprehensive. None have been done with the object of building a regional plan for arts and culture on the Coast."
A scan would assess the economic impact of events such as festivals on the local economy; it would spot trends and allow organizations to have some real numbers to use for grant funding.
"It gives you the clout you need for funding," Lucas points out, and it allows the cultural community to prove to business that there is an economic value to the arts. In the current jargon, the scan should help with "community building." It could help resolve communication problems and, overall, would assess the impact of the arts on the Coast's economic health. The inventory could be kept up to date in the future by integrating it into a web-based database.
When Lucas, whose background includes working with Coast Cultural Alliance (CCA) and S.C. Film Society, was first hired, she turned to Powell River to find out whether a similar inventory, a 2003 report from their economic development society, had made an impact on the community.
"My first question was 'why is this a useful document?'" she said. She was assured it had been useful, for example, in its importance to branding, that is, repositioning the area's image from an ex-mill town to the pearl of the Sunshine Coast, as it is now known. Also, the Powell River region has been declared "a cultural capital of Canada."
"We should have that designation," says Lucas.
The seeds of the cultural scan were sown last February at a comprehensive meeting of the Coast's many arts organizations sponsored by the Spirit of B.C. Community Committee, when groups discussed the potential of such a scan and learned about funding. The project was picked up by committee liaison Jan Poynter and drew interest from the CCA, the regional district's recreation program and the Arts Council. Funding has come from various sources including the Spirit of BC Arts Now program. The scan starts this month after hiring a consultant to conduct the inventory process. It will continue until a draft final report is issued by June 15.
