In this poetry workshop, artist and writer Lauren Prousky will guide participants through a series of prompts designed to explore what a connected cultural community could or does feel like in pursuit of the creation of an actionable guiding ethos. Rather than focusing on solving problems in the logistical sense, we will be imagining the values, motivations and practices that could inform a community contract or set of ethics from which individuals, organizations, and local governments can begin their work in our cultural sector.
Lauren will be leading this session as part of her work as an advisor on the Regionalizing Social Media Project, also known as the Regional Arts Communications Infrastructure Project. This project, facilitated by Inter Arts Matrix (IAM), since April of 2025 has worked with Arts Directors, Community Members, and Artists across the Region of Waterloo to develop a collaborative, comprehensive plan and geographically-specific communication strategy for the community, artists, and cultural workers. IAM’s aim is to provide numerous benefits to our community, such as greater cohesion, centralization, and organizational capacity within the arts community by increasing the visibility of arts sector content (events, workshops, open calls, etc.); decreasing the barriers to entry for community members; recharging the community's battery for social and artistic engagement; and connecting audiences from different arts disciplines to increase community cohesion.
At the end of this workshop, we will have a collection of writings that will inform Lauren in the crafting of a poetic text to be included in the resulting project paper. Eventually, it will also be made into a print and digital graphic that can be disseminated to our community. Contributors will be acknowledged in the final product wherever possible.