ENGAGED. ENERGIZED. ENRICHED. A KHC Scrapbook 2004-2024

Photos by Bill Usher

Additional photos Claire Dibble, Anonymous

Curated by Tammy Prather

Photo production Claire Dibble

As the story goes, it was October 2005 and Board members of the Golden District Arts Council (rebranded in 2004 as Kicking Horse Culture) were participating with community leaders in an organizational assessment and strategic planning initiative.

This new group of supporters were attempting to rejuvenate the 35 year-old arts council’s fortunes. As the weekend sessions were coming to a close, it became time to consider a new Mission. Participants broke out into pairs and went off to envision words that would animate this new energy and direction for the arts council.

When the group reconvened and shared their brainstorming around the circle, Maggie Calladine and Bob Wilson reported back to the group, “We came up with three words … engage, energize, enrich. What do you think?” Time to open a bottle of wine and celebrate, said the rest!

One month later, declaring that the Mission of Kicking Horse Culture is to “engage, energize, and enrich the cultural life of Kicking Horse Country” Board members and supporters met with elected officials and staff of the Town and Regional District to make a presentation asking for a cultural services delivery partnership. KHC made three promises:

• to partner with Kicking Horse Country, our provincial, federal, corporate funders and our audiences to deliver a vibrant, year-round palette of cultural activity that will make “where” and “how” we live an attraction
• to use cultural activity as a catalyst to build upon and enhance our local traditions and further develop a strong “sense of place”
• to help fuel pride in community, social & economic development, tourism and the very real feeling that this is a “great place to live and visit”

Both the Town and Regional District voted unanimously to enter into this partnership and the first agreement was signed in June 2006. This agreement between KHC and our municipal leaders has grown and strengthened over the last two decades fostering the realization of some powerful community dreams. The Art Gallery of Golden was created in 2007 and then re-opened in its current location in 2008. Also in 2007 KHC took over management of the Civic Centre and in the next five years raised over $1.1 million to support the Town’s restoration and rebirth of the dilapidated building as Golden’s dedicated performing arts centre and community gathering place.

Welcome to Engaged. Energized. Enriched. A KHC Scrapbook 2004 – 2024. It’s a collection of over 500 photos taken by Bill Usher with additional images from Claire Dibble and some unknown contributors. “A picture’s worth a thousand words” and over the last few months Tammy Prather and Bill Usher have been scouring through various digital caches of images looking for those snapshots and show photos that would tell the stories of KHC’s Mission in action.

Curator Tammy Prather says, “Bill has taken thousands of images over the years and we started going year by year looking for those images that showed folks in our community participating and enjoying moments together. It finally became apparent that the only title for the exhibit should be engaged, energized, and enriched.”

Opening Artists’ Reception 5 to 7pm Friday, April 26

Exhibit runs April 26 through May 25, 2024