Video 3:8 Transcript

Interview with Nichola Reddington

Kelly Jerrott: Hi. Today we’re talking with Nichola Reddington with the city of Victoria. Nichola and I worked together for quite a number of years now. Hey, Nichola? When we were on the Creative City Network of Canada board for a number of years, and learned to learn from each other’s experiences, and reach across the country to others so that we could all work together. And again, we’ve got Caitie MacKinnon, who is working on this open textbook chapter that you’re all a part of now. So we’re going ask Nicola to provide a little bit of an introduction for herself, and tell you all a little bit about her background, or a little blurb to get us started. And then we’ll dive into a conversation.

Nichola Reddington: Sounds good. Thanks, Kelly. Well, I’m a proud graduate of the Grant MacEwan University program. Back in nineteen ninety nine, I graduated from the Arts and Cultural Management Program, which really was a launching pad for me into this career of arts and cultural management – over now twenty two years. And prior to that, I went to Queen’s University and studied theater and drama with a minor in art history. And, yeah, I’ve really had the privilege of working both in the nonprofit as well as municipal government.

I also did the UBC cultural planning program, which is my real focus now, which is in cultural planning and policy. And yeah, a field I didn’t even know really existed when I started in the field. And yeah, it’s just been a really amazing journey. I sometimes still pinch myself that I get to to work in this amazing city in Victoria, and with the team we have here. And yeah, it’s been a really rewarding career for me so far.

And yeah, I’ve had a real pleasure of working on boards both at the national and provincial level through the Creative City Network, and through the BC Alliance for Arts and Culture. So that’s also been really rewarding, to work with my peers on how we can continue to do professional development and research, and continue to strengthen the field.

Jerrott: Well, and that’s a good point to kind of emphasize. And part of what we’re doing here is, we’re starting you all off with the reaching out to others who work in the field. So we’re doing this remotely and sharing this through a video link with you. And so I think maybe we’ll jump right in and just ask you to talk a little bit about some of the projects that you’ve been involved in with the city of Victoria, that have contributed to the cultural value of the community. So we’ll jump right in.

Reddington: Well, I think the foundation for us was Create Victoria, which is our arts and culture masterplan that we launched in 2017, it was adopted by council. That really is our roadmap to everything that we’ve done since. And really that, you know, we looked at our artists in residence programs, and our Indigenous artists in residence programs. We looked at our new bus shelter program called Commute. We looked at the activation of our vacant storefronts program. Everything that we do goes back to our vision. Which was really about that – Victoria radiates creativity, and it thrives as a home for creative people and everyday artistic encounters. And that was really what drives everything that we do now at the city.

And so, to back up a little bit, we used a creative ecosystem approach to cultural planning. And that was really helpful because it gave us a comprehensive, holistic understanding of our cultural sector. And we really looked at the systems of culture. And that really, when we talk about the systems of culture, then we start talking about networks, and how they’re all interconnected. So you’re really thinking about – How is our artists, and our makers, and our tourism bureau, and our hotel industry, and maybe our festivals? How are they all interconnected? And when you start to use that lens, it really helps you to understand – How do you strengthen those bonds, or those networks between people? What are the quality and the quantity of the friendships or the relationships between those groups? Is there a role for the city then to strengthen or facilitate more opportunities to cross-pollinate, let’s say, the tourism sector with the tech sector and the arts sector?

And I think, you know, that ecosystem lens is really, you know, it’s related back to nature. That’s where it’s been lent from, is sort of an ecological systems approach. And if you think about it, and this is how we explained it to our community, was that, you know. In any ecosystem, there’s elephants, and there’s fleas. And they’re both important to the sustainability of that ecosystem. So often, in culture, your elephants are your big cultural institutions, right? The ones that get the most amount of the funding, they’re the big players. And sometimes in cultural policy, you can spend too much time thinking about the elephants, not enough time thinking about the fleas in your community. You know, you have to sort of work with people here. But, what is important is that you need both. And so sometimes when you use the ecological systems approach, you’re really looking at equitable and sustainable community. Because you recognize that yes, you need the elephants, but you also need all the little bugs, and all the little things that make that ecosystem work.

And so it’s really important in cultural planning that we don’t neglect parts of your ecosystem that often have not gotten the funding or the priorities, and that there’s more equitable disbursement of resources in your community. So it really did help us sort of look at where we had some inequities. And I think now more than ever, you know, we really have to sort of pay attention to, not just the elephants, but also all the beautiful bugs and fleas that are in our community. (laughs)

Jerrott: Well, and that really is what makes cities so vibrant, is that interconnectedness and all of those different components. That’s a great way of explaining it. So you’re not focusing on any one area, but it’s – how do you connect? And I know we’re looking at cultural mapping, and mapping, and creating those visuals.  And, you know, if you vision all of these connected lines like a web. And how much stronger that is. The more connections you have to more pieces. And so, more organizations, and cultural and arts groups, and tourism groups, the more connections you have, the stronger your community is. So that’s a really great analogy.

Nichola, how did you use the – When you were pitching, you mentioned some of the projects that you’ve been involved with. Which are great to give people an idea of, what are the types of things that they might be working on in their communities. And they will all vary a little bit. But, how did you package it when you were, maybe, presenting your business case or proposal? What did that look like and how did you use the cultural value, or values propositions to help get things done?

Reddington: Yeah, well, our cultural plan, Create Victoria, was based on 2,000 people’s input. So there was a lot of community process wrapped into our cultural plan. So there was always – this was not city staff proposing ideas. We were really just a vessel for the community’s voice within City Hall. And, I think what was really key was that we were aligned internally, both with our city council and the corporate strategic plan, as well as other important planning topics, in terms of our end document so that we were really integrated in our approach.

But we also had, all of our staff are really connected in with the community, and we always are listening. We always have our ears, sort of, on the ground in terms of what’s happening with emerging issues in the community, or opportunity, or where we have concern. And so from my perspective, where I’ve had success, is where you’re really aligned with your community values, aligned with, sort of, where your city is going in terms of their wider city goals and strategic directions. Your councilors will change. But there’s always value for culture in your community. You can make an argument for culture, from an economic lens, from a social lens, even environmental lens, you know, you always find an argument for culture and making the case for culture in your community. And you just have to be really aligned both inside and outside of city hall.

And when you can have that little push from the inside and a push from the outside, when you’re aligned with your community, you can really make things happen, so that we’re on the same page. And we’re limited, city staff are limited in what we have control over and what we can and cannot do. Our role is to provide reports, and options analysis, and do our homework. But when you’re you’re aligned with the community values, then really something magical happens because you get the support from community. They write letters, they show up at council. There’s a real wave of energy that can come from the outside. And when our city council sees that and they see a really well, comprehensive report written aligning with that, then you do get the resources. You do see movement with being able to initiate new projects and ask for more funding.

And I’m just very strategic. I’m always looking for little pots of money, new partnerships. As much as we do that sort of through an ecosystem approach in community. I also do it from inside City Hall. How do I partner with transportation on the new bike lanes? What’s the role of culture within that project? How do I work with our parks team on integration of culture within green space and health and wellness outcomes, right? Looking at equitable ways that green spaces can support our community, and what’s the role of culture and music, for example, that can support our community through social wellbeing, and even mental health.

So I mean, I can always find a way to get culture at the seat, at the table. Like, you know, just give me a seat, and I can find ways to strengthen the goals or outcomes that you’re trying to achieve through that parks project, engineering project, climate change project. Like, come to us. You know, artists play an amazing role to solve complex issues, so artists can always play a role at the table to help us solve these really challenging complex social issues, every city is facing. Whether it’s Toronto, St. Albert, Halifax, we’re all facing very similar issues. So, come to us and work with the creative people we have in our community to solve or at least have these conversations.

Jerrott: Yeah, that’s great. And great examples, and kind of using that, and reframing and working together, and developing all of those partnerships, and the collaborative relationships, and really just acting as that facilitator, and rephrasing and repackaging. So it’s not just you as a staff person making that case.

And so you talked a little bit about how to get things done. And, maybe, can you explain a little bit more in terms of the approach you took with the Create Victoria plan, and talk a little bit about the the creative ecology a little bit more. Because that when you look at that in some of the academic writing, and stuff, and it all looks good on on paper, and we love the diagrams and there’s all kinds of different ways to to show that, and how that helps nurture the development of cultural value in the community and connecting. I mean, you mentioned a little bit about that overall wellness and the mental health, and we’re seeing so much more of that. I think the appreciation now as we’ve all worked through, or are still working through the COVID 19 pandemic. But maybe just talk a little bit about how that worked, and that whole ecology, and how that connects with the sustainability and the value in our communities going forward.

Reddington: Yeah. And so when you look at an ecological approach, there’s basically two modes of inquiry or models. So you can look at systems or you can look at processes. So for like music strategies, they often look at the value production change, you look at processes. So if you’re a musician, and you want to produce an album, and you want to get it to market, you will look at all the steps that someone would need to take – the processes – to deliver that product. And so it’s really useful for that, a very specific strategy or discipline, that’s a really good approach.

But when you’re looking at a city wide integrated culture plan, systems approach is really the way to go in terms of looking at the system. So it’s really helpful to break it down into those types of systems, rather than looking at it from a disciplinary – or so you look at music, you look at art, you look at it – it creates silos. What you’re trying to do is break down those silos. And this happens a lot. I mean, we had a literary café, for example, where it was just our literary community, just to sort of have that roundtable where they could talk about just the literary arts. And it was the first time we had libraries, writers, poets, booksellers, publishers all in the room that said – “We never get together. We never all get together in a room and talk about our sector.”

And so, even from that point of view, we saw that there was really weak ties between writers, and, for example, the booksellers or the booksellers and our festival, you know, our book festival, for example, or our magazine industry, like there wasn’t those linkages. And sort of like in my states, or looking at social capital theory – like how do we bridge and strengthen and bond those networks more closely together? But with – Why isn’t tech in the room? We have one, AbeBooks is one of the biggest tech companies in Canada that does digital books, but they’re not even in the room, because they’re not considered part of the sector, because they’re seen as a tech – You know what mean? So you have to really, if you look at it from a systems approach, and look at the quality and the quantity of the relationships between individual artists and makers and creators, and then the institutions, the facilities, the spaces and how they’re all interconnected. You have to do that through a mapping process that helps you to see the distribution of those assets, those physical assets on a map. But then you can also go to the next level where you look at the strengths and bonds between all of these sectors.

And then what you’re really trying to do is – how do we really start to weave together these networks, you know, even more diverse groups within our community? And it really just strengthens, and it creates a safety net, I think, for those smaller entities. It creates that sustainable city in terms of taking care of each other, that we create this interweaving of people and ideas and sectors. And we all see that we are part of a larger cultural sector.

And it all starts with – What is culture? And if you ask that question of cultural planning, let me tell you, you get about a thousand different responses of what people and culture is. So that’s your first step is like, what is culture and like, why are we doing this and what is cultural planning? And you really it takes – it took about six months to get everyone on the same page of – why we were doing this, and what we were including in culture. And that’s kind of your foundational step is really, Cultural Planning 101 – talks and workshops and sitting in coffee shops and meeting with lots of people to sort of. And also explain the value of culture in your community, what role it plays and also, the culture we have in Victoria is completely, totally unique and different than other cities. So we shouldn’t try and be Vancouver. We shouldn’t try and be a different place.  There is something about this place that is unique and special, and so we, you know, doing an analysis on how we can strengthen what we already have here. There’s a real DIY culture here, right? So our culture plan looks at that. How do we create those spaces in places and resources for people to do their own thing? And where does the city need to get out of the way?

Jerrott:  That’s right. I think it’s great. You know, every community is different, and we don’t need to replicate what another city or community might do. And I think one of the keys is we just need to start, and keep it simple and have some of those initial discussions, and really emphasize maybe starting with the – What is culture, and what’s the value and reinforcing that as we go forward.

Wow. You shared some great ideas. And I think folks who are starting and maybe embarking in some of this new in their careers or who have shifted careers and are starting in a new community, I think have some great examples. Caitie, any questions that you can think of that might be helpful for some of our students in the course, or professionals who might be checking out this video?

Caitie McKinnon: Yeah, I was actually wondering if there might be, if you had any other examples, because when you mentioned the literary cafe in terms of like, what would be like an actual example of how you get these groups together, just from like a purely planning point of it?

Reddington: Yeah. And so one of the key aspects when you’re doing it from a city point of view is – What is your role? Are we facilitators? We see ourselves as real connectors, because we have all sorts of folks coming into our office asking for help or they’ve got an idea. So we often have quite a bit of information, and how we share that. And so one of it is like just one on one, connecting people. We go for, like, lots of coffees. We are constantly out in community. We are constantly gathering information and sharing information. We’ve also done intentionally, like networking events at Viatec, where we invite the arts community to our tech hub that we have here, that have all the tech companies, and we do mixers with tech companies. We host events in very different venues to really sort of make sure that we’re also going out to community in different places. That is also accessible to groups that maybe don’t feel comfortable coming down to City Hall. And I think, yeah, I think using social media and other different types of techno, you know, platforms, technical or digital platforms.

But, there’s real power in face to face, still, I think, and building those relationships. I have to say, I think I cashed in 15 years of building relationships when I did cultural planning, because I was really able to pull in, and really ask people to, you know, come join us on this cultural planning journey with us, and people really responded. But I built, you know, that was my social capital of being in community and working and going to events. And, you know, even if the city hosts an event right before the fringe, you know, a fringe preview. We did that where the city hosted an event to a fringe preview show, just to sort of invite people together.

So I think there’s just little ways that you can start to begin to strengthen those ties and really making sure that people are welcomed into City Hall, that we’re a one stop shop, that you can come in and ask us like, that we’re very welcoming place. Understand that not everyone feels welcome, feels like they can go to a city, bureaucratic office. And a lot of people get really worried about, you know, kind of engaging with government. So I think we’ve always tried really hard to like. We hosted a coffee –  drop in coffees -you know, come and just drop in and we’ve got coffee on. You know, so sometimes it’s the simplest things that have the biggest impact.

Jerrott: And I think that’s key, you know, keep it simple. Don’t overthink it. Keep it simple and reach out and have those conversations. And you can kind of reframe what those conversations are, and where the location is, and that type of thing. So it’s building up that network, and reinforcing, what culture is and what the value is, and helping to explain what those connections are. And you’re right. You mentioned, you know, once you start to map it and you start to put it on paper or, so to speak, or on your whiteboard or whatever technology you’re using, you start to see where those overlaps are. I was thinking when you were talking about your literary group, and the connections there with writers and also with songwriters. And so you get an overlap there, and then you start to see those connections. And then sometimes you can connect with different disciplines, and different organizations, which is really powerful going forward.

McKinnon: It also seems like an opportunity to see those gaps, as you pointed out, the gap in the tech not being involved.

Reddington: Yeah. When you get a clustering of arts organizations and people in the neighborhood, then it gets really powerful. Because when you go into a local area planning process, I can bring that map forward and say, like, “Do you know, there’s a cluster of performing arts companies here?” And that we need a 300 seat theater as we map, so that when we’re going through a redevelopment process, and we’re talking to developers, and they’re looking for a density push, you know, a lift. Maybe they could be, they’re the ones that are going to build our new theater for us. Right? So there’s so many ways to use your culture map for sustainable urban design and planning processes, and making really livable neighborhoods when you can say, like – we have a high concentration of artists and makers who live here. We need zoning that allows for live-work zoning. We’ve got all the data. So that really helps our planners build communities that recognize that we have a really creative workforce here, that we have a lot of cultural assets. So if we don’t have that, then we, what city do we really want to live in? A city that’s just full of, you know, I don’t know, accountants? (laughs)

Jerrott: Not that we don’t like accountants, but.

Reddington: I love accountants. But I don’t know if I want to live by a whole bunch of them.

Jerrott: And that’s a great example, though, Nichola. In terms of just reaching out, and this is where we can maybe help some of our colleagues working in other areas. Whether it’s our development department and our engineering department, and how it connects with the overall city planning. And with our cultural mapping and the planning that we have to help help provide that case for them in terms of creating that livable city, and engaging city and where we all, you know, the kind of place we we like to live.

Reddington: A lot of people move to Victoria because it’s seen as a creative place. There’s like, there’s a good vibe here. And it’s all kind of tied into, like, they like the cultural vibe of the city. So you have to constantly just tell your politicians, and the planners, and the people with authority power, that the reason people move here, and invest here, and, you know, create businesses here is because they’re driven. You know, they love the climate, but they also love the impromptu concerts that happen on our patios and porches. And, there is a real creative vibe here. People really appreciate it. So yeah, I mean, we’re lucky here in Victoria. I’ve got, you know, it’s got great bones. It’s just what do, what do we do with it, right?

Jerrott: Well, you’ve certainly done a great job with the Create Victoria plan, and implementing that, and sharing it within your community, and sharing with us. And it’s just that every community is different, and they will all look a little different. They’ll all be unique. And so we really appreciate you sharing some of your examples and your experience, and we look forward to seeing what’s next and then what what emerges in some of the other communities based on some of some of your learnings and experience.

Reddington: Well, thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure.

Jerrott: Thanks Nichola.