Fort St. John community arts & culture framework
A long-term strategy to guide arts and culture initiatives in the Energetic City.
Residents share what they want to see from their city to support the local arts and culture scene.
Arts & culture are for everyone
Everyone should be able to participate in arts and culture in their city—whether that’s attending a play, visiting a gallery, taking an art class, or singing in a local choir group. With ambitions to cement its status as the region’s creative and cultural hub, the City of Fort St. John asked Happy Cities to guide the development of its first-ever Arts & Culture Framework. This action-oriented Framework will guide the City’s support for arts and culture events, activities, facilities, funding opportunities, and more over the next 10 years.
Local residents contribute to collaborative mural art at one of our pop-up engagement events in Fort St. John.
Fort St. John is a growing municipality in northern British Columbia, home to many newcomers and long-time residents alike. The local creative community represents an incredible diversity of talent—from a jampacked local art gallery and Indigenous Artist Market, to popular local theatre programs at schools, to fibre craft guilds that have outgrown their maker space, to Filipino cultural associations celebrating their longstanding history and rich local culture. The Framework seeks to build on this active and vibrant arts community, strengthen opportunities for collaboration, and build capacity among local organizations.
Through deep engagement with local residents and stakeholders, Happy Cities led the development of an arts and culture framework unique to Fort St. John. Through this work, we explored the connection between arts and culture and specific indicators of local community wellbeing—such as Indigenous representation, retention of skilled workers in northern B.C., and activation of the City’s Downtown area through public art and programming.
The final Community Arts & Culture Framework was adopted by Council in August 2023 and is now available on the City of Fort St. John’s website! Explore the Framework below:
Fort St. John Community Arts & Culture Framework
Download the Framework
For a second round of engagement, we attended the High on Ice winter festival to hear from local residents.
What is an arts and culture plan?
An arts and culture plan seeks to guide a city’s support and investment (through staff time and funding resources) towards arts and culture services, programs, facilities, and local initiatives. Happy Cities’ approach to developing an arts and culture plan reflects best practices by:
Engaging with the community to understand arts and culture priorities, identify opportunities, and garner support.
Determining a vision and guiding principles that align with the city’s goals and with the community’s priorities.
Evaluating existing assets and programs to understand potential gaps and opportunities, including constraints and opportunities to facilitate growth of arts, culture, and heritage services, programs, and facilities.
Assessing emerging industry trends and best practices in the delivery of arts, culture, and heritage services, programs, and facilities.
Researching leadership frameworks, governance models, and municipal trends to deliver arts and culture services, programs, and facilities.
Providing recommendations for city-specific allocation of resources toward culture policies, programs, and services.
Local residents use stickers and sticky notes to share their thoughts on arts and culture in Fort St. John.
