The Centre For Cultural Futures Canada - News and Views , Cultural Futures NewsThe Centre For Cultural Futures Canada - News and Views , Cultural Futures Newshttps://www.culturalfutures.ca/news-views/cultural-futures-newsWed, 06 May 2026 05:37:26 -0700http://zoho.com/sites/<![CDATA[Centering Small, Rural and Remote Museums In Canada]]>https://www.culturalfutures.ca/news-views/post/centering-small-rural-and-remote-museums-in-canada1This interview with CCFC Executive Director Ron Ulrich highlights the overlooked importance of small, rural, and remote museums, drawing on nearly 100 national conversations to argue for place-based support, capacity building, and inclusion in broader cultural policy and sector development.]]>
Ron Ulrich, pictured here during his time as Executive Director of the Canmore Museum (RMO, 2021), has dedicated his career to Canada’s museum community. He now serves as Founding President and Executive Director of the Centre for Cultural Futures Canada.

An Interview with Ron Ulrich, Executive Director, Centre for Cultural Futures Canada

This interview originally appeared in the Canadian Museum Association Winter 2026 Muse Magazine; reposted with permission (2/20/26)

How can the national cultural sector achieve better cohesion and impact? To answer this question, we turned to the Centre for Cultural Futures Canada, a national organization focused on strengthening cultural ecosystems in rural, remote, and underrepresented communities.

While the Centre is newly established, it has emerged from many years of practice-based work in museums, heritage, and community development. The Centre for Cultural Futures Canada exists to address a persistent gap: cultural organizations in smaller and rural contexts play a critical civic role, yet are often neglected in policy, funding, and data systems. The following interview with Ron Ulrich, founding Executive Director of the Centre for Cultural Futures Canada, sheds a much needed spotlight on how centring small, rural, and remote museums in our work and advocacy can strengthen Canada’s museum sector. 

What are some of the Centre for Cultural Futures Canada’s key activities to date? 
Coming out of the pandemic, we recognized that cultural organizations of all sizes were facing overlapping pressures — shifting audiences, funding uncertainty, rapid digital adoption, and workplace challenges. To better understand what was happening on the ground, we spent nearly a year conducting close to 100 conversations with cultural professionals across the country. Those conversations surfaced sector-wide challenges as well as important differences shaped by scale and place, and consistently pointed to the need for greater attention to rural, remote, and underrepresented communities. 

That insight directly informed the launch of the Future of Rural Culture Summit, which brought together cultural organizations and practitioners, Indigenous knowledge holders, funders, researchers, and community leaders to share experience and identify common priorities. The upcoming Rural Cultural Leaders Roundtable builds on that work, shifting the conversation toward collective sensemaking and action. Alongside this convening work, we’ve been building relationships with organizations to explore better ways of understanding and communicating the value of rural culture. 

How does your specific focus on supporting rural, remote, and underrepresented communities affect your approach? 
Scale and context matter. Approaches that work well for large, urban institutions are not always transferable to volunteer-driven or small-staff organizations, and even less so to community-driven cultural groups in small-town Canada. Our focus requires us to design work that is place-based, relational, and adaptable. It also means recognizing that rural and remote communities are not lacking creativity or leadership — they often lack systems that recognize and support what they already do well. 

Capacity is a critical part of this conversation. Cultural leaders in rural communities are increasingly being asked to deliver social, cultural, and economic outcomes without corresponding increases in financial or human resources. 

This is not a marginal part of the sector. According to our analysis of 2021 Stats Canada data, 34% of Canadian cultural organizations operate in rural communities. Overlooking these realities risks missing a significant portion of Canada’s cultural infrastructure. 

How can museums get involved? 
Much of the recent work to articulate Canada’s cultural landscape has rightly focused on the arts, but museums and heritage are not always fully integrated into how we define and measure culture as a whole. At this stage of our work, museums can engage by participating in convening events such as the Rural Cultural Leaders Roundtable and, as we move forward, in community-based pilots connected to the Rural Cultural Vitality Indicator Suite. We cannot build a holistic understanding of rural culture — or culture in Canada more broadly — without the active participation of museums and heritage organizations. We need their voices at the table. 

How does your background as a longtime museum Executive Director impact your role here? 
I’ve worked in museums, in the broadest sense, since I began volunteering at the age of 14 to help develop the Crowsnest Museum. Over the course of my career, much of my work has been in executive leadership roles, most recently at the Canmore Museum, and much of it has taken place in rural and small-town contexts. 

Rural communities are vibrant places to live, work, and create, shaped by museums, galleries, festivals, and everyday cultural life.  Working in rural museums teaches you the immediacy and relational nature of impact. You see, often very directly, how museums shape learning opportunities and a sense of belonging for both residents and visitors. That kind of impact is powerful, but it has not always been easy to translate into the data required for grants, sponsorships, or donor support. This is less a failure of practice than a systems issue tied to capacity, technology, and how cultural value is measured. 

Across my career in rural museums, I’ve consistently tried to frame museums not only in terms of economic contribution, but social impact. That experience directly informs how the Centre for Cultural Futures Canada approaches research, policy, and sector dialogue today. 

You just hosted the Future of Rural Culture Summit — what was a key goal of that event? What is something new that you learned personally? 
A key goal of the Summit was to convene people working in rural culture alongside those engaged more broadly in rural community development. We wanted to create a shared space to begin a longer conversation — one that signals that rural  arts, culture, and heritage, are visible, valued, and ready to engage more fully with the national cultural sector. 

What became clear through the process was how limited the existing infrastructure is for advancing rural culture as part of rural community development. While consultants and community development professionals regularly engage with cultural activity, there has been no consistent, sector-wide voice focused on how arts, culture, and heritage contribute to rural development outcomes. 

Personally, the Summit reinforced the importance of convening as a form of leadership. Bringing people together across regions and disciplines created space for shared language, mutual learning, and deeper understanding.  Overall, the Summit underscored how attention to place can strengthen community culture, support reconciliation through shared care for landscapes, and reinforce the role of data in telling the story of why this work matters for me personally. 

A major focus of your organization is supporting Indigenous nations. How does your work support museum-based reconciliation efforts such as Moved to Action? 
For us, reconciliation work is grounded at the local level. The development of the Rural Cultural Vitality Indicator Suite helps us work with communities to build cultural vitality where relationships are lived and sustained. While the Centre for Cultural Futures Canada operates as a national organization, a key focus remains on supporting communities and cultural organizations in creating the conditions for meaningful, place-based relationship building and reconciliation at a local level.  

Initiatives such as Moved to Action provide an important pathway for museums to recognize that reconciliation is structural, requiring shifts in governance, decision making, authority, and how knowledge is shared. Museums are well positioned to do this work, but many — particularly smaller and rural institutions — need practical tools, shared learning, and sustained support to engage fully. The Moved to Action Small Museums Toolkit is an incredibly valuable resource in this regard, and we see strong alignment between the CMA’s goals and our own work. Our role is not to duplicate existing efforts, but to help create the conditions — through dialogue, evidence, and capacity-building — that allow  efforts to support Indigenous self-determination to take root and strengthen cultural vitality at the community level. 
About Ronald Ulrich

Ron is a cultural leader and museum professional with extensive experience in rural museums, art galleries, and theatre spaces. He is the founding Executive Director of the Centre for Cultural Futures Canada, where he works nationally at the intersection of culture, research, policy, and community capacity-building. 

]]>Tue, 24 Feb 2026 12:49:21 -0700<![CDATA[Welcoming Our Inaugural Board of Directors]]>https://www.culturalfutures.ca/news-views/post/welcoming-our-inaugural-board-of-directorsCultural Futures Canada proudly welcomes its inaugural Board of Directors—dedicated leaders from across the country guiding a more inclusive, sustainable, and connected cultural future.]]>

Cultural Futures Canada is proud to announce the appointment of four inaugural Board of Directors. This group of dedicated and visionary leaders will guide our work as we strengthen cultural life in rural, remote, and underrepresented communities across Canada.


Our new Board brings together experience in museums, heritage, placemaking, community festivals, and Indigenous culture and heritage, as well as deep lived experience from across the country. With representation from Western Canada (AB, BC, YK) and Eastern Canada (ON, QC), we are now seeking to expand perspectives by welcoming new voices from Central Canada (SK, MB) and Atlantic Canada (PEI, NS, NL, CB).


We are especially committed to strengthening the diversity of voices at our table, including francophone voices as well as Indigenous perspectives, cultures, and heritages. This commitment reflects our belief that cultural leadership must reflect the communities it serves.


Our Board Members


Anne Ewen

Anne Ewen

Chair

Janice Smith

Janice Smith

Vice-Chair

Jerremy Elbourne

Jerremy Elbourne

Secretary/Treasurer

Samantha Summers

Samantha Summers

Director-at-Large

Please join us in welcoming:


Anne Ewen — Chair. Anne Ewen is a cultural leader, curator, and consultant with a distinguished career in Canada’s arts and heritage sector. Recently retired as Director and Chief Curator of the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, she has curated more than 200 exhibitions nationwide and advised museums, galleries, and municipalities on governance, collections management, and long-term planning. Recognized with multiple awards, including the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal, Anne continues to champion cultural excellence and heritage preservation in her role as Chair of Cultural Futures Canada’s Board of Directors.


Janice Smith — Vice-Chair. Janice Smith is a museum professional with over 30 years of experience in curatorial practice, exhibitions, and digital engagement. As Vice-President and COO of Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame, she led major bilingual education programs and landmark digital projects such as the Indigenous Sport Heroes Education Experience. Through her consultancy, J. Smith Museum Consultant, Janice has advanced cultural initiatives across Canada and internationally, including in Jamaica. Dedicated to equity and Indigenous self-determination, she brings deep expertise in inclusive programming, partnerships, and digital innovation to her role as Vice-Chair.


Jeremy Elbourne — Secretary-Treasurer. Jeremy Elbourne has been Executive Director of artsPlace Canmore since 2015, leading its transformation into a vibrant cultural hub for the Bow Valley. With over 25 years in arts leadership, including senior roles at the Canadian Opera Company and in Toronto’s theatre sector, he brings expertise in administration, marketing, and organizational growth. Holding an MBA in Arts & Media Administration from York University, Jeremy is passionate about the role of the arts in fostering creativity, community engagement, and inclusion, which he now contributes as Secretary-Treasurer of the Board.


Samantha Summers — Director-at-Large. Samantha Summers is a cultural consultant, researcher, and educator with experience spanning major institutions, grassroots organizations, and nonprofits nationwide. She has held senior roles at the Royal Ontario Museum, the Toronto International Film Festival, and Kids Help Phone, and has supported organizations across Canada with fundraising, governance, and strategy. A published researcher and lecturer in museum studies at the University of Toronto, Samantha is committed to advancing equity, reconciliation, and accessibility in cultural policy and practice. She brings this passion and expertise to her role as a founding Director-at-Large.


Looking Ahead

We are excited to embark on this journey with such a committed team of leaders. Together, we are building a future where Canada’s cultural sector thrives as a dynamic force for inclusivity, sustainability, and connection.


This is only the beginning, and we look forward to sharing our first year of milestones, learnings, and impact with you.


👉 Learn more about our Board members and the expertise they bring: Meet the Board

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