Marine Museum of the Great Lakes, H'art Centre team up on art projects – The Kingston Whig-Standard

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The Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston is entering into a partnership with the H’art Centre to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between Canada and the United States.

From June to December, the museum and H’art Centre will be working together on a variety of projects.

The partnership will “engage and empower as many individuals as possible to embrace the Great Lakes as a vital freshwater resource, while providing opportunities for accessible arts-based heritage programs and cross-cultural conversations,” a news release stated.

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Some of the projects include: Our Great Lakes weekly educational art-based workshops with H’art Centre artists and the public for 10 weeks, from June to September; and Our Great Lakes Public Art Installation at the museum from October to December, featuring the work of H’art Studio artists from the summer workshops.

The multi-program project invites the community to connect with our local waterways by engaging in arts-based workshops, exhibits and performances, the release said.

“We are very excited about the opportunity to increase access to museum programs and for individuals of all backgrounds to come together to celebrate and advocate for the protection of the largest interconnected body of freshwater in the world,” the release said.

“Following a short series of art programs last summer, we are delighted to be working with H’art to facilitate intergenerational conversations about our shared heritage and the environment,” Michelle Clarabut, programs and communications manager at the museum, stated in the news release.

During the summer at H’art, program and event initiatives will include Moving Shoreline, artist participant workshops that will result in moveable wooden sculptures from June to August. These sculptures will contribute to the museum’s art installation and H’art’s roving dance production, Water, and Canadians Connecting: Freshwater, H’artist visual art workshops with outreach to five to 10 inclusive arts studios across Canada. These workshops will culminate in a national exhibit at The Mix in October.

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“At H’art, we know that when we connect to a collective purpose and apply the power of the arts to it, we grow and strengthen our community,” executive director Katherine Porter said in the news release. “This creative season, we are excited to partner with the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston to find creative ways to get people to become more aware of their relationship with the water, their connection to the waterways, and to think about how we must act to protect such a vital shared community resource.”

The project is being supported by a $12,000 grant from the Community Foundation for Kingston and Area.

H’art Centre would like to thank Bill and Nancy Gray and the Ontario Arts Council for supporting the workshops and national exhibit, and the Ontario Trillium Foundation and the City of Kingston’s Arts Fund for their ongoing support.

More details on these programs and information about how to register can be found online at www.marmuseum.ca.events.