Culture Information
Cultures Creates...Community
Individuals seek out cultural experience for intrinsic reasons: for joy, for captivation and for building greater self-awareness.
Art and music animate public spaces, and create a draw for people to congregate. Public art can create cohesion in an area, representing the community and continuing historic significance while enabling new development. Investments in cultural infrastructure can inject new life and activity in areas that have been in decline.
Supporting culture helps us find value in the deeper impacts of cultural experience. It fosters our ability to question creatively, tell our stories, understand our past, imagine our future, and build a vision of who we are as individuals, as a community and as a society.
Culture Creates...Connections
The power of culture in fostering understanding, empathy and insight is a critical factor in how an individual understands his or her place in the community.
Culture plays a central role in advancing intelligent communities, sparks innovation and is a strong vehicle for social progress and personal growth. New communication channels are allowing an explosion of creative expression, and creative industries are bringing people together to achieve new heights.
Manitoba has a rich range of voices, experiences and talents. Expressing everyone's perspectives in our cultural and creative industries brings people together to share ideas and a vision for the future of our province.
Cultures Creates...Opportunity
Culture is an important economic driver in the Manitoba. In 2014, it was responsible for $1.7 billion, or 2.9 per cent of Manitoba's total gross domestic product, and provides direct employment to 22,000 Manitobans, or 3.3 per cent of Manitoba's workforce.
The Manitoba Arts Council provides operating support to professional arts organizations across the province. In 2015/16, the Manitoba Arts Council provided a total of approximately $8.5 million to Manitoba artists and arts organizations through its regular programs.
Other provincial government departments also support the professional arts sector, directly or indirectly. For example, Manitoba Education and Training supports arts and learning initiatives; Manitoba Justice runs Lighthouse programs that provide arts activities, and Manitoba Growth, Enterprise and Trade promotes arts activities throughout the province through tourism initiatives.
Among youth, cultural engagement enhances academic achievement, builds self-confidence and resiliency. Arts and cultural experience helps young people acquire skills needed to succeed in the knowledge economy.
A thriving cultural environment also helps retain young people in the province by providing an exciting place to live and raise a family.
Further Reading
Imagine Creative Manitoba! is a discussion paper that outlines the trends, issues and current government support for culture and creative industries in Manitoba. Read the discussion paper.
