COMMUNITY PARTNERS
RISC Formal Community Partners join us in our research into improvisation and its social impact and are involved in the wider IICSI network. (Click on the title to visit each partner's website)Interactive Media and Performance Labs
and the Flatland Scratch Series
The Interactive Media and Performance labs are a primary site for interdisciplinary research and collaborative projects across the University of Regina and among wider communities of interest, particularly in Western and Northern Canada. They are coordinated by Canada Research Chair, Dr Charity Marsh.
The labs house the following:
· A multi-media DJ interactive studio and performance/workshop space
· An Ethnomusicology Fieldwork Lab
· A Beat-making-Electronic Music Studio
· Archival materials
· Research offices for post-doctoral fellows and graduate students
The labs are the focal point for the ongoing research objectives of the Canada Research Chair which include:
· To spearhead a range of projects focused on how interactive media-based performance cultures initiate new dialogues concerning issues of identity, community, social relations, politics, anxiety, space and citizenship.
· To understand the significance of regionalism, cultural identity, access to new technologies, and a consciousness of resistance in relation to these music cultures within the context of Canada.
The IMP labs have developed close ties with the Regina community and wider provincial links, and have a number of longstanding partnerships working with improvised hip-hop and youth mentorship in local high schools, with Saskatchewan First Nations communities, and with local and provincial health and welfare partners. They would collaborate with the new IICSI centre to create new hip-hop practice and research projects with both existing and new community partners.
Flatland Scratch Seminar and Workshop Series
The Flatland Scratch Seminar and Workshop Series is an initiative of the Canada Research Chair/ IMP labs and has been running since 2005. This series has brought together artists and academics creating workshops, seminars, and performances by local, national and international musicians, artists, and scholars related to the various elements of hip-hop culture (graffiti, break, rap, DJ and beat-making), current manifestations of global electronic dance music cultures (psy-trance, silent raves), technologies associated with music production and performance, and the significance of music as a contemporary storytelling practice. Through Flatland Scratch, the new IICSI centre in Regina will be able to find new ways to ensure that artists, academics and communities are all equally involved in knowledge sharing, as well as co-hosting festival events to accompany academic seminars.
The Indigenous Peoples' Health Research Centre (IPHRC)
Aims:
The Indigenous Peoples' Health Research Centre (IPHRC) is a partnership between the University of Regina, First Nations University of Canada and the University of Saskatchewan, with broad support from various health boards and Aboriginal health organizations. We are supported by the Institute of Aboriginal Peoples' Health (IAPH), an Institute of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). IPHRC is primarily focused on building capacity in health research among Aboriginal people, communities and institutions through trainee support, and promoting research into areas of Aboriginal health.
Focus
· Indigenous identity, place and connectivity, and cultural/linguistic continuity, as they relate to health
· Mental health and addictions
· Complex interactions of factors
· Chronic disease
The principles that inform our research are community-based and interdisciplinary. Policy, knowledge translation and social determinants of health transcend all four focus areas and are a required aspect of all of our research.
IICSI and IPHRC
The IICSI centre at Regina works with the IPHRC and their community collaborators to develop new community projects working on racism as a health problem, and on wider issues of community health in Saskatchewan Aboriginal communities, focusing on the development of new intermedia arts projects in hip-hop, performance and youth mentorship.
Creative City Centre
The Creative City Centre is a vibrant cultural hub that brings together artists of diverse disciplines and experience levels in a central venue to foster collaboration, innovation and creative development. Located in a recently restored heritage building in Regina’s downtown core, we offer affordable artist studios, an intimate performance venue, a visual art gallery, and meeting and workshop space. The space is run by artists, with an aim of nurturing a lively, inclusive and sustainable creative community in Regina.
The Centre offers a variety of regular programming in our performance space, including music concerts, a monthly poetry slam, play readings, and a songwriters’ circle. We also make the space available to community members and groups that use it for workshops, meetings, conferences, and other events. For info on upcoming events, visit our Events page.
Our visual art gallery, the Hague, displays evocative new work from emerging artists, with exhibits changing every 6-8 weeks. Our series of satellite art exhibits, Pop Up Downtown, extend our visual art curation outside of our doors, using vacant storefronts and independent business locations to display the work of new artists.
The Wascana Rehabilitation Centre
(Native Health Services & Music Therapy)
The Wascana Rehabilitation Centre is a Regina Qu'Appelle Health Region facility. It provides comprehensive medical rehabilitation programs for adults and children, as well as specialized long-term care. A wide variety of programming, including Functional Rehabilitation, Amputee Services, Spinal Cord Injury Services and Orthopedics, Children's Services, Adult Rehabilitation, Extended Care and Veteran's Services, are available to meet the particular needs of clients. The Centre serves the population of southern Saskatchewan. The Centre became part of the Regina Health District in 1994 and a facility of the Regina Qu'Appelle Health Region in 2002. It currently has a total of 307 beds - 43 for rehabilitation inpatients, 205 beds for specialized long-term care clients, five children's beds and 54 beds for clients placed through Veterans Affairs Canada. Native Health Services is charged with supporting First Nations and Métis patients requiring hospital care. Music Therapy supports the needs of all Wascana clients through therapeutic work using music making, appreciation, and skill and identity/community development and support.
Common Weal Community Arts
Saskatchewan communities engaged in participatory art for social change
Common Weal Community Arts Inc. is a provincial arts organization that collaboratively engages professional artists with communities to promote social change and cultural identity through creative expression.
Values and Guiding Principles
• Empowerment and creating opportunities for empowerment
• Community Engagement
• Creativity and flexibility
• Integrity and ethics
• Social justice
• Revolutionary practices and making a difference
• Art of high artistic merit and socially-engaged aesthetics
• Accountability
ARTISTIC PARTNERS
We hope that all organizations and artists working in the area of improvisation, with a focus on social benefit, will join us as artistic partners so that we can share resources and build a network for Saskatchewan. Please contact us if you are interested in being added to our growing mailing list of artistic partners.Holophon
Holophon Audio Arts Inc. (holophon) is an audio arts organization based in Saskatchewan that unites communities using sound as an artistic medium. A not-for-profit arts organization, holophon engages in diverse sound art practices including composition, gallery installation, and live performance, while additionally offering community support through educational programming.
As the only Saskatchewan-based organization to focus exclusively on the development and furtherance of audio art practices, holophon is uniquely situated to serve as a liaising organization for practitioners of audio art and the larger cultural community.
The events organized by holophon are designed to benefit artists and the general public alike. Our goal is to develop new audiences for audio based art, reaching out to include members of the classical and new music community, young audiences familiar with electronic music, theatre, dance and literary arts, visual arts, and members of our wider cultural community.
In its short history, holophon has proudly engaged in collaborations with other Saskatchewan-based arts organizations including: PAVED Arts Inc. and AKA Gallery in Saskatoon; New Dance Horizons, the Mackenzie Art Gallery, Neutral Ground, the Cathedral Village Arts Festival, the Music Department at the University of Regina, and Queer City Cinema in Regina.
In 2011, holophon was awarded a Mayor’s Arts and Business Award for Innovation in the Arts with praise for how “[holophon’s] groundbreaking work in the creative audio arts, including guest curation and presentations, educates and engages our community and inspires important discussions about sound as an art form”.
