The City of Kamloops has received a national award for its cultural strategic plan.
In a news release, the city said the 2025 Creative City Impact Award in Cultural Planning was presented at a summit held on Oct. 7 in Kingston, Ont.
The award was given in recognition of the You Are Here Kamloops Cultural Strategic Plan, which took shape after a months-long cultural mapping exercise hosted in collaboration with Thompson Rivers University at the Kamloops Museum and Archives.
The document lays out a 10-year arts, culture and heritage vision for Kamloops.
“Culture is an essential component of a community’s shared identity,” said Dusan Magdolen, the city’s cultural service and events manager, in a statement.
Magdolen and Julia Cyr, museum supervisor, accepted the award alongside TRU’s Dr. Will Garrett-Petts and Patricia Huntsman, a consultant who helped put together the plan.
“The community-based cultural mapping work being led by the TRU research team has the power to augment more traditional asset mapping and record the community’s intangible assets — turning individual story maps and deep interviews into highly accessible art exhibitions and rich data for cultural planning,” Garrett-Petts said.
“We are honoured to be a part of this remarkable community-led collaboration.”
The award was given out by the Creative City Network, a national non-profit professional association dedicated to strengthening municipal cultural policy and planning.
