'Orange Hub' highlights arts issues in Edmonton's election
It’s easy for arts and culture issues to get buried under a mountain of electoral jockeying about LRT expansion, snow clearing and bike lanes.
But as council hopefuls compete for votes, focusing mainly on the nuts and bolts of taxes, transportation and neighbourhood development, the City of Edmonton formally acquired a large west-end facility to be transformed into an arts and culture centre.
The city took possession of the MacEwan West campus — recently christened “
The Orange Hub” — on Sept. 29, a move officials hope will add vibrancy to the Jasper Place community.
The plan is for the building to house 14 arts and heritage organizations, three education-focused groups, two focused on community development, one on sports and seven on wellness. A consortium of three arts groups want to run the small black box theatre, but by late August, there still weren’t any takers for operation of the main theatre.
The City of Edmonton took over the Orange Hub, previously known as MacEwan University’s west campus, on Sept. 29, 2017. It is being reimagined as a centre largely focused on arts and culture based in Ward 1. LARRY WONG /POSTMEDIA
The
Professional Arts Coalition of Edmonton is surveying candidates on a range of issues, from space to funding to the public art collection. The coalition’s executive committee chair Ken Davis says they think it’s important for people to know what prospective civic leaders envision for the future of arts and culture in the city.
“We would hope that a new city council will continue to voice strong support for a proactive strategy for advancing arts and culture as an essential sector in Edmonton,” Davis says.
With most of Edmonton’s major cultural institutions clustered in the core, the Orange Hub, though more modest in scope, has potential to carve out a “hub” for arts in the west end — its Jasper Place location in Ward 1 intersects with Stony Plain Road and the proposed LRT route.
