Friday, November 24
2pm – PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR ARTS ORGANIZERS  at Oxygen Art Centre
with mentor Julie Fowler (Registration required and space is limited E: info@oxygenartcentre.org)

For this professional development opportunity interested participants need to register by email and submit a question or a topic for discussion relating to producing arts programming and events.  Participants must have some prior experience in production and will be asked to submit a short biography outlining this experience.

This workshop is free to attend and space is limited.

Julie Fowler is the Executive & Artistic Director of the Island Mountain Arts Society in Wells, BC. Passionate about finding ways to celebrate and promote artists, she has helped to create two award-winning festivals, both featuring a range of artistic mediums from performance to visual arts: the Art Matters Festival at Concordia University in Montreal and the ArtsWells Festival Of All Things Art, which began in 2004 and is now the largest arts event in the Cariboo with over 2500 people converging in Wells on the August Long Weekend each year. Julie graduated with an Interdisciplinary MFA from the University of British Columbia, Okanagan in 2013 and her thesis project, a creative non-fiction novel called the Grande Dames of the Cariboo, was published by Caitlin Press that same year. Julie is proud to sit on the board of directors for ArtsBC and Folk Music Canada.

‘Upstream Benefits – Rural Art Symposium’ is a 4-day-long symposium that explores and celebrates the role and impact that the arts have in rural communities and will bring into focus artist-run culture in the Kootenays.  Symposium programming includes multiple panel discussions, artist talks, literary readings, a night of performance art and music and an art exhibition.  All symposium programming is free to attend and everyone is welcome!  (Donations are appreciated.)

For more information and to see the symposium schedule link here https://oxygenartcentre.org/upstream-benefits-symposium/

Oxygen Art Centre gratefully acknowledges support for this programming from Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance, Columbia Basin Trust, British Columbia Arts Council and Province of British Columbia, Touchstones Nelson Museum of Art and History, The Writers’ Union of Canada, Elephant Mountain Literary Festival, Pacific Association of Artist-Run Centres, City of Nelson, Region District of Central Kootenay, Hall Printing, Nelson Star and the Hume Hotel.