The Role of the Arts and Culture in Community Vitality and Linguistic Duality
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“Culture helps foster the development of social capital and the organizational capacity to respond to change. Culture can also strengthen social cohesion, increase personal confidence and improve life skills, improve people’s mental and physical well-being, strengthen people’s ability to act as democratic citizens and develop new training and employment routes . . . . By looking at culture as an imaginary resource we could see how the meanings embodied in its traditional or current culture create the identity and values of a place.”
– Charles Landry, The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators, 2000, pp. 9–11.
In the last five years there has been an explosion of books and articles linking creativity with community vitality, social prosperity and economic growth. Authors such as Richard Florida15 and Max Wyman16 have challenged policy makers to recognize the role of the arts and culture in stimulating creativity, making our cities more liveable, attracting investment and tourism dollars, providing employment, inspiring youth and offering quality of life in our communities. Artistic expression and cultural events and institutions are seen as vehicles to promote social cohesion and a sense of cultural identity.
A 2004 study for Canadian Heritage strongly confirmed the role culture has to play in contributing to community vitality and identity in official language minority communities (OLMCs):
| “. . . most (93%) people from official language minority communities feel that “it is important that a dynamic arts and culture identity in (their) language is passed on to the next generation” and that it is important to their official language minority identity that they have access to a dynamic arts and culture community in their own language.17” |
The ability of official language minorities to identify with their culture is enhanced when that culture comes out of the shadows of private life and assumes a public face. Only then are citizens able to feel a sense of belonging to something greater than themselves—a collective history, a common endeavour, an ambitious future. Given the lure of the Internet, popular media and advertising, a vibrant arts scene is an especially important means of engaging youth from minority communities—of enabling them to see themselves reflected in public discourse and public space and imparting a sense of belonging to a culture other than a generic North American one.
In small towns and rural locations in particular, cultural activities facilitate interaction, build the community and help to create a lively, forward-looking environment, one that has the potential to counter the exodus to the larger centres. Recurring events, such as the Festival du Voyageur in Winnipeg, the Festival acadien in Caraquet, Sudbury’s La Nuit sur l’étang and Casselman’s L’écho d’un peuple, are particularly important for bringing people together to delight in a collective experience, and to increase their understanding of the world. Events such as these are not only cultural: by bringing people from the community together around a single project, they foster a sense of collective accomplishment and pride in their shared history and roots.
Furthermore, it has been well established that cultural spaces contribute to a sense of pride in communities by acting as a location for various cultural activities. A physical space creates a symbolic sense of place—a “home” for one’s culture and traditions, where collective dreams and aspirations play out. Such spaces reinforce identity because they bring people together to participate in living culture, a manifestation of their survival and growth as a community. City planners, architects and developers in the larger communities across Canada have long recognized the importance of cultural spaces. Considerable investments have made it possible to build facilities in some of these urban centres. However, finding the funds to build and above all operate cultural spaces remains a challenge most of the time, particularly in smaller communities.
With a society that is bilingual, culturally diverse and geographically dispersed across a vast territory, Canada has multiple reasons to put the arts and culture at the service of the promotion of cultural diversity and linguistic duality on the international level. If culture makes for healthy, dynamic communities, it also has a strong role to play in promoting those characteristics that define what it means to be Canadian. The vitality of OLMCs is important to preserve Canadians’ bilingual heritage and ensure the future of our bilingual society, and, moreover, the meaningful connection and engagement between the two language groups define our essential “Canadian-ness.”
Notes
15 Richard Florida. The Rise of the Creative Class And How It’s Transforming Work Leisure and Everyday Life, Basic Books, 2002.
16 Max Wyman, The Defiant Imagination: Why Art Matters, Douglas & McIntyre, 2004.
17 Decima Research Inc., The Arts in Canada: Access and Availability 2004, research study prepared for Canadian Heritage, March 31, 2004. On-line version (http://culturescope.ca/ev_en.php?ID=7849_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC
) consulted January 8, 2007.
