Creative NS Awards 2018

FLOW explores the concept of water as a metaphor for artists and artistic creation. When we think about the region of Nova Scotia, we think about a physical landscape that is abundantly gifted with multiple and diverse bodies of water.

Surrounded by over 7000 km of coastline, this province is also dotted with more than 3000 freshwater lakes and is engraved with hundreds of river systems, streams and watershed environments. Our aquatic infrastructure is one that is complexly interconnected and also vital to the health and wellbeing of all of those who inhabit the region.

At this moment in time, water is an especially topical subject as we universally and locally grapple with issues of its protection, usage, ownership, conservation, and how we can ensure its long-term health and survival. In so many ways, water is the most essential life-giving resource within our natural environment. Without all of the things it abundantly gifts us, we would not survive long without it.

Much like the water that surrounds us, artists are an equally vital and essential resource within our province’s social and cultural ecosystem. Artists are in many ways akin to a body of water. Like a reservoir or lake, they hold and shape the spaces that contain creative ideas and production. They also sustain and nourish our creative communities. Without artists, we would have a landscape deplete of our most essential life-force and energy. And like water, we must do our best to ensure the health, strength, and vitality of our province’s artists and our artistic culture. We also must do our best to recognize, support and celebrate those artists who have contributed their time, talents and expressions to our collective creative reservoir.