Call to Action on Arts Education

COVID-19 has devastated the arts and learning sector, threatening to push the arts completely out of post-pandemic school programming while limiting the impact of the sector on broader community revival. We are seeking endorsements for our Call to Action on Arts Education to help in our advocacy efforts as we seek to sustain and grow arts and learning in an emerging new normal. By adding your name, you will make a bold statement that arts and creativity are integral to the learning process, both at school and throughout life, and are fundamental to the development of the fully realized individual.

Call to Action on Arts Education - The Winnipeg Vision

The Canadian Network for Arts & Learning calls on governments, artists, educators, professional organizations, researchers, universities, communities, and all advocates of arts and learning to endorse the following principles to ensure that the arts are positioned to make an increased and sustainable contribution to learning both at school and throughout our communities.

The vision is the outcome of a major conference (Creative Convergence) held in Winnipeg, Manitoba in October of 2019 during which participating experts from across Canada and around the globe were asked to share their perspectives on the future of the sector. Their responses highlighted how the three goals of the Seoul Agenda, Goals for the development of arts education (UNESCO 2010) can be interpreted from the perspective of practitioners and learners.

We envision a sustainable future for arts and learning in which learners of all ages:

  1. Have Access

    • Access diverse and inclusive learning experiences in, through and about the arts via
      • Opportunities within the home, community, learning institutions, and workplace
      • Recognition and celebration of diverse artistic traditions and expressions
      • Digitally mediated and face-to-face engagement
      • Overcoming social, economic, geographic, and cultural barriers

  2. Experience Quality

    • Experience quality arts education via
      • Progressive development of artistic knowledge and techniques
      • Self-expression and human interaction
      • Responding to works of arts from diverse cultures and traditions
      • Balancing the potential and risks of technologically-mediated arts practice and learning
      • Moments of contemplation, curiosity, wonder, joy and delight

  3. Apply the Arts

    • Apply the arts to issues of personal, local, and global significance via
      • connecting to self, others and community
      • Building understanding, reconciling difference and mobilizing change
      • Supporting civic engagement and social good
      • Contributing to personal and community health and well being
      • Activating artistic ways of knowing within non-arts sectors

Our call to action is issued in sympathy with the provisions of the Frankfurt Declaration for Arts Education (World Alliance for Arts Education, November 2019) and is closely aligned with several of the goals and targets of UNESCO's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UNESCO 2015).

View the Call to Action as a PDF

Add your endorsement to the Call to Action on Arts Education

Recent Endorsements

Josée Lavigne

Je signe parce que Je suis artiste et enseignante spécialisée en arts visuels et je travaille dans le milieu des arts et de la culture depuis toujours. La crise m’a touché personnellement et touchera beaucoup de mes ami(e)s et professionnels du milieu. J’ai des années d’expérience de travail et d’études et malgré tout je suis en mode survie en ce moment. Nous ne sommes peut-être pas considérés comme des travailleurs ´essentiels’ mais entre nous, sans arts et culture, surtout en ces temps difficiles, la vie serait très pénible.

Josée Lavigne

Je signe parce que Je suis artiste et enseignante spécialisée en arts visuels et je travaille dans le milieu des arts et de la culture depuis toujours. La crise m’a touché personnellement et touchera beaucoup de mes ami(e)s et professionnels du milieu. J’ai des années d’expérience de travail et d’études et malgré tout je suis en mode survie en ce moment. Nous ne sommes peut-être pas considérés comme des travailleurs ´essentiels’ mais entre nous, sans arts et culture, surtout en ces temps difficiles, la vie serait très pénible.

Hila Graf

I am endorsing because Arts education is extremely important, we must make sure it keeps being an imminent part of our society.

Jaime Morse

I am endorsing because I believe the arts contribute to education in a big way and I hope to see all children have access to arts learning opportunities. Particularily Indigenous communities where technology is a problem or in urban centres where addiction within the family or access to devices because it's cost prohibitive for a low income family.

Réseau d'enseignement de la danse

Je signe parce que plusieurs écoles de danse craignent le pire : ne pas retrouver leurs élèves à la rentrée. Plusieurs ont manqué à l'appel lors de l'ouverture des camps de danse cet été. Seront-ils au rendez-vous dans deux mois? Plusieurs sont à risque de fermer. Je soutien les écoles de danse, et ce, à travers la province! La danse est rassembleuse, amène confiance et épanouissement.