The City of Kamloops You Are Here Kamloops Cultural Strategic Plan 2024–2034 has received a national award for cultural planning.
The 2025 Creative City Impact Award in Cultural Planning was presented at the annual Creative City Network of Canada Summit, held in Kingston, Ontario, on October 7. The Creative City Network is a national non-profit professional association dedicated to strengthening municipal cultural policy, planning, and practice.
“Culture is an essential component of a community’s shared identity,” said Dušan Magdolen, the City’s Cultural Services and Events Manager. “The You Are Here Kamloops Cultural Strategic Plan 2024–2034 is a 10-year arts, culture and heritage vision for Kamloops, identifying initiatives and resources to meet the needs of our growing community.” It was noted that the Creative City Summit awards panel was particularly impressed by the plan’s place-based approach and its meaningful community engagement practices tailored to Kamloops’ unique cultural landscape.
The plan’s development involved extensive community engagement led by the City, including collaboration with the Kamloops Museum and Archives, Thompson Rivers University, and cultural strategy consultancy Patricia Huntsman Culture + Communication.
Through community feedback, the plan identified major themes to align ideas, people, and resources to a shared vision of cultural development for Kamloops into the future.
“Throughout summer 2022, the Kamloops Museum and Archives created a living laboratory that invited Kamloops residents to engage and share in their vision for the future of Kamloops culture through cultural mapping, a research method for documenting a community’s cultural assets,” said Julia Cyr, the City’s Museum Supervisor.
The award was accepted by Cyr and Magdolen, joined by Dr. Will Garrett-Petts from the Faculty of Student Development at Thompson Rivers University and Patrica Huntsman, Principal, Patricia Huntsman Culture + Communication.
Dr. Garrett-Petts says the national recognition demonstrates the strong partnership between Thompson Rivers University and the City.
“The community-based cultural mapping work being led by the Thompson Rivers University research team has the power to augment more traditional asset mapping and record the community’s intangible assets—turning individual story maps and deep interviews into highly accessible art exhibitions and rich data for cultural planning,” said Garrett-Petts. “We are honoured to be a part of this remarkable community-led collaboration.”
Cyr notes that the You Are Here Kamloops Cultural Strategic Plan and the drive for supporting and shaping cultural planning in Kamloops was the vision of the City’s long-time Recreation, Social Development, and Culture Manager Barbara Berger (now retired). “Barb’s vision for culture helped to shape the trajectory of a cultural movement for the City of Kamloops, and we are incredibly honoured to continue this legacy for generations to come,” said Cyr.
View the You Are Here Kamloops Cultural Strategic Plan 2024–2034.
