Working with our partners at Calgary Public Library, Civic Innovation YYC and Calgary Arts Development Authority, this semester we have students registered from three universities exploring how a resilient and smart city can build a vital and sustainable creative and cultural economy. Over the next few months, students teams will be working with some of Calgary's most creative and talented artists as they build their knowledge about four of our city's creative clusters; performance, written and literary works, visual arts, music & film.
Student teams will be inspired to create citizen experiments for each creative cluster aimed at capturing the imagination of Calgarians and creating a space where everyone can learn more about our city's creative and cultural industry and its significance to the New Economy.
Students will be working on the following two challenge questions:
1. How might we embed the arts into the DNA of the city of Calgary?
2. How might we create awareness about the size, scope and impact of Calgary's creative and cultural economy?
Activation in our community
Winter Semester (January - April 2019)
Students from any post secondary institution may register in a 3-credit course during the winter semester that supports the teams to further develop, refine and implement an experiment. Students will be registered in either Civic Innovation at MRU or Directed Studies in their home institution, and will come together 3 hours weekly with the the lead instructor, Dr. Catherine Pearl, other faculty and community partners for learning, mentorship and coaching opportunities. This semester, the course is being delivered in downtown Calgary at the New Central Library!
Community Engagement
Opportunities for community engagement/citizen experiments will be hosted over the course of the semester. As well, student work will also be on display in the library.
Final Showcase (March, 27, 2019)
A final showcase event will feature citizen experiments developed by the student teams for their creative cluster, with opportunities for community partners, stakeholders and community members to explore learnings and observations emerging from the student projects.