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Neepawa sits on the eastern edge of Westman, a region of Manitoba that stretches from the Saskatchewan and US borders and all the way up to Riding Mountain National Park. It’s a geographically large and diverse area, but despite the distances, the arts community across Westman is coming together to tackle the challenge of putting the arts at the forefront of community-building.

Jane Ireland of the Killarney-Turtle Mountain Arts Council, Yvonne Sisley of ArtsForward in Neepawa, and Judy Dandridge of Wasagaming Community Arts join us for a discussion on the initiatives and goals of the Westman group.

For the past year, the communities of Virden, Killarney, and Neepawa have been involved in a pilot project centred on collaborative communities and making the arts central to community life. From this initiative was born the “official” Westman regional group which invited representatives from across the area, and from that group they launched the new Westman arts passport which encourages people to travel around the region this summer.

The group doesn’t just exist for connecting with each other for new ideas and projects but also for sharing of resources, cross-marketing, advocacy, and general support. Dandridge made sure to recognise the role of the Community Development branch of Manitoba Municipal Relations for providing support and helping them to connect with other organisations in the region. While some were already familiar to one another through working with the Manitoba Arts Network, another big supporter of connections and collaborations, others operated outside of that framework.

The size of these organisations varies greatly, from the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, a professional gallery in Brandon, to unregistered organisations run entirely by volunteers. That’s one of the ways in which having a collective can really help members, says Ireland. Larger centres with paid staff can shoulder some of the admin work and red tape of joint projects, and have a lot to offer when it comes to essential functions like grantwriting as well as mentorship and professional development.

The organisations, regardless of size, face a lot of the same challenges, including working with funding bodies and struggling with the return of audiences post-pandemic restrictions. Any organisation operating outside of the City of Winnipeg is considered a rural organisation, and they have different needs and different demands from an urban centre. A recent change to a provincial granting process was a big driver for the region to come together, as individual organisations struggled with the new requirements and were reaching out to find mutual support. Aside from the passport, one of the first actions the organisations took as a region was to advocate for themselves as rural arts council on that provincial level.

One of the biggest challenges for the arts, and particularly rural arts, has always been how to make people see how relevant they are to everyday life. That can take the form of adding the arts to the conversation when it comes to things like community development, but also drawing attention to the fact that they’ve already been there all along, from music to design to architecture, and giving that its due importance.

Ultimately, says Sisley, the sky’s the limit as far as what she thinks they can accomplish together. They are laying the groundwork now for what they hope will be a blossoming of the arts across community life in Western Manitoba.