{"id":26388,"date":"2020-04-16T15:22:32","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T19:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26388"},"modified":"2020-04-16T15:22:39","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T19:22:39","slug":"cultural-centre-looks-to-continue-the-connection-amid-closure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/cultural-centre-looks-to-continue-the-connection-amid-closure\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural Centre looks to \u201ccontinue the connection\u201d amid closure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When the historic Church Street School was closed along\nwith all other municipal facilities in response to COVID-19, it was hoped that\ncultural programming would return to its storied walls sometime this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, with closures set to continue until the beginning of\nMay at the very least, it is unlikely that cultural programming will return to\nthe building until 2022 in anticipation of redevelopment of Library Square.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have cancelled all of our workshops, classes and\nevents until the end of May,\u201d says Suzanne Haines, Executive Director of the\nAurora Cultural Centre. \u201cWhat that also means for us, given the Library Square\nproject, is, when we come back together, we will be doing so in a different\nvenue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is very challenging to have those cancellations and\nknow we\u2019re going into this incredible phase of infrastructure building, which\nmeans we\u2019ll not be able to invite our community back into this home that we\nhave had for so long. But what we\u2019re delighted about is these relationships\nthat we have built and are ready to go. The reality is we love \u2013 and are completely\nsupportive of \u2013 what the Town is doing on this infrastructure and are so\ngrateful to have a home that we do get to work out of once we\u2019re re-opened and\nwe really want the community to feel that they can join us in these new venues\nwhen we\u2019re ready to gather again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the new venues the Aurora Cultural Centre has\nbeen scouting for alternative programming locations for the duration of the\nbuild are yet to be announced, they are rolling out other ways for the\ncommunity to stay connected with them during the weeks and months ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cultural Centre has recently launched a new social\nmedia campaign called Arts at Home Aurora (#artsathomeaurora), an initiative to\nencourage people to \u201cthink about creativity in their own way.\u201d The Centre has\ndone just that over the last couple of weeks, bringing some of their in-house\nclasses online, but now they want to hear from you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is about encouraging the community to think about\nwhere they are creatives and how they use their time,\u201d explains Ms. Haines. \u201cIt\ncan be reading a book, working on a piece of art, playing the piano, we\u2019re\nencouraging the community to take pictures or videos of that and post them on\nsocial media, using the hashtag #artsathomeaurora. We\u2019ll grab those and tag\nthem as well because this is where people are looking to find those moments\nand, as adults, we need a little more encouragement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe tend to want that for our kids and look for those\nopportunities for our kids, but the bulk of the people we interact with in the\ncommunity are adults and we know that we have an incredible creative community\nin Aurora. If you are working on a piece of writing or at home working on a\npiece of art or sitting down with a guitar, whether you are students or not, we\nwant to celebrate those moments of creativity through the hashtag.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the closure, the Aurora Cultural Centre has been\ncelebrating its tenth anniversary online by digging into the vaults and sharing\nmemories of where they have been so far. But this social media campaign is a\nway to look to the future and make new connections in a challenging time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe would love to see what evolves out of\n#artsathomeaurora,\u201d says Ms. Haines. \u201cI think we will find there are artists\nthat maybe we don\u2019t know, or artists who want to participate with us in a way\nthrough this. I think that is an excellent connection we can make with people\nwho are creating in our community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is inspiring to see what is happening and have the connection with the artists that we do. Compassion is a big part of what we\u2019re seeing, so people are creating to develop or support calm in their life; they are creating to connect with a group that either they\u2019re already connected with or know they need support, building something that can be delivered and raise others up. I have been connected to the Aurora community for almost three years now and I would say that the people I have met certainly fit that bill. Now they are showing this real interest in diving into art streams that will support others, so it is that compassion and that generosity that is heartwarming and really builds community at a time when we can\u2019t come together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the historic Church Street School was closed along with all other municipal facilities in response to COVID-19, it was hoped that cultural programming would return to its storied walls sometime this month. But, with closures set to continue until the beginning of May at the very least, it is unlikely that cultural programming will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/2020-04-16-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6RC","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 23:01:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}