Become a Member

Hello folks,

Thank you for your continued support of the Saskatchewan Arts Alliance. Your membership is essential – it strengthens our voice helping us advocate on your and the arts community’s behalf.

Over the past year, the Saskatchewan Arts Alliance consulted with the arts community and met with the government about the unique needs of the arts and culture sector in these unprecedented times. Some of the examples of the advocacy and community engagement work we have done in the past few months include:

January 2023 –  Arts Everywhere Podcast – Executive Director Em Ironstar and podcast producer Kevin Power are the key creators of SAA’s podcast. Arts Everywhere celebrates the importance of the arts in Saskatchewan and serve to unite us and the work we do. To view a complete list of podcasts and to listen, click here.

February 2023 – Music Education Advocacy Initiative –  This project began when our members, Saskatchewan Music Educators Association, approached the SAA about music education advocacy. This project has been expanded to include the creation of a resource toolkit for music and its benefits in and throughout our lives. It includes multiple music organizations in the province. This initiative is slated to be launched in Fall 2023.

March 2023 – Provincial Budget Response –  SAA attended the reading of the 2023-24 provincial budget. The budget again brought mixed news – near status quo funding to the majority of the arts sector and a two-million-dollar increase for Creative Saskatchewan. Read SAA’s complete response here.

March 2023 – Pajama Party Politics: Gathering to Gab

This event was created for anyone with the experience of disability or barriers to arts participation. It was held in-person and online in partnership between SAA and LTD on March 20^th in the evening and on March 23rd via Zoom.

This event was part of LTD’s and SAA’s Saskatchewan-based initiative – creating a living document on accessibility in the province to support a broader understanding of access through the disability cultural lens.

April 2023 – Rural Artist Working Group (RAWG) – SAA is working with rural artists to create a Rural Artists Working Group (RAWG). This group will tackle issues around isolation, professional development, and connecting provincial artists and arts communities of all disciplines. This group has met digitally twice and will meet in person in Swift Current in late July. If you are interested in participating in the RAWG, please email outreach@saskartsalliance.ca.

May 2023 – 2023 Spring Arts Gathering, on May 18, 2023, SAA hosted a day of online discussion and professional development. The day centred on two main themes, reimaging non-profit governance and understanding how to take action toward decolonizing institutions while caring for collaborators. There were two panels as part of the event, and an honorarium was made available to Saskatchewan residents who attended.

As we continue our advocacy and engagement work, we recognize that organizations and artists are still struggling with continued loss of sponsorship dollars, the reluctance of audience members to return to live events and the pressure of accumulated deficits, so we are continuing to offer a “pay what you can” system for membership fees. We ask that you choose from the list of suggested contributions and contribute what your organization is financially capable of.

In the coming year, SAA will continue to consult with arts communities throughout the province and continue our research through an updated artist and general public survey as part of our Saskatchewan Arts Research Project (SARP). The SAA is the only organization in Saskatchewan devoted to supporting in-depth primary research on our provincial arts community.

To view our ongoing work, visit www.saskartsalliance.ca and to stay up to date on what we are up to, please make sure you are signed up for our e-newsletter and follow us on social media – you can find all of that information on our Linktree!

We ask you to please maintain your support of our arts advocacy by renewing your membership today. If you have any questions or concerns or would like to chat, please contact me at director@saskartsalliance.ca or by phone at 306-518-7586.

Sincerely,

Em Ironstar,
Executive Director