The Creative City Centre was incorporated in 2008 by our founder, Marian Donnelly. She had leased an empty space in Regina’s downtown and had a vision to convert it into a community-based arts centre. It took months to get the financing in place and the original design plans approved. In 2009, mechanical, electrical and plumbing was installed. In 2010, Marian and a small team of volunteers spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours removing old wallpaper, refinishing floors, installing sinks and toilets, tearing down walls and building new ones. By early 2011, tenants started to move in. On May 8, 2011, the Creative City Centre was officially opened with a media event and performance.
Since then, we have presented between 150-200 events every year, including music concerts, visual art exhibitions, spoken word and poetry slams, comedy nights, life drawing sessions, film screenings and just about any kind of workshop or community event you could imagine.
The funding support we received over the years was always appreciated, but never quite enough. We’ve managed to get by with part-time programming staff, but always relied on the volunteer time, passion and energy of our founder. Marian has been the bookkeeper, grant writer, HR manager, janitor, bartender, sound technician and tenant manager among many other roles.
When we went into lockdown mode in March 2020, we realized we would not be able to maintain any kind of social distancing practices in our small venue. We found some financial support from SK Arts Special Projects Fund, purchased some new equipment to augment what we already had, and converted the gallery from a performance and exhibition space to a production studio. We started creating digital content on a regular basis. You can find all of this content here on our website and on our YouTube channel!
We also offered different artist development programs, such as our Social Media Marketing for Artists (SMMART) program, which taught artists the skills they need to market themselves in this digital age. Learn more about this program here! We also completed two seasons of our Recording Artist Development (RAD) Program. The RAD program allowed music artists to set up shop in our Hague Gallery for a month and learn all the ins and outs of the music industry. They also recorded audio tracks, had a photo and video shoot, and wrote a new bio, giving them a complete Electronic Press Kit (EPK) to use for future grant applications or for applying to showcase or festival opportunities. Learn more about the RAD program here!
While we used our gallery for the RAD program, we continued to offer our Spoken Word programming at the Artesian on 13th and a few other venues. We also started a new visual arts program called Drink & Draw, which we host monthly at the Hampton Hub on 15th Avenue. In November 2023, we moved out of our former home on Hamilton Street, and are preparing to renovate a new location in Regina’s downtown and re-open in the fall of 2025.
The Creative City Centre exists because of the financial support of Jacqui Shumiatcher, Dr. Roberta McKay and Elmer Brenner. These generous supporters of the arts in Regina are pillars in our community and we thank them from the bottom of our hearts!
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