On March 26th, 2025 the Paprika Festival released it’s 2024-2029 Paprika Festival Roadmap which outlines the trajectory of the next few years for the company. Artist Cheyenne Scott was invited to witness this process and offers insights and reflections from the inside.
As someone who learns best by doing, being invited to participate in Paprika’s Strategic Planning was a treat. It had been 5 years and a whole new staff since the 2018 Manifesto and it was time to do some reflecting on where the company was at currently while honouring the hard work of our predecessors. What had been accomplished so far and what still needed to be addressed? Dominique Giguère and Jed Decory from Currents Group Inc. helped us facilitate this process. They developed surveys and conducted community research to help us understand our positioning in the climate post quarantine. The whole process was several months and many many zoom meetings. At first it felt muddy and there was no clear outcome in sight. Apparently, according to Dominique and Jed this was a completely normal part of the process. They would outline the data they received and make suggestions and we would discuss with the board what felt compelling with our known experience of Paprika. At the time I was the Community Programming Producer and had been with the company for 3 years.
This experience gave me the agency to voice my thoughts and observations (believe me I have many big opinions but sometimes it’s difficult to express them and I really appreciated having the space to strengthen those muscles). I was curating and brainstorm programming at a high level with a team of supportive people. Here’s some hot tips from what I learned:
1. The Board must be involved. This may seem obvious to some people but for me I assumed that Outgoing Executive Producer Keshia Palm, and General Manager Julia Dickson, and I would be doing most of the labour and then presenting our findings to the Board. When in fact, the Board needs to take the reins and be involved so that they have ownership over the strategic planning. Especially, at a place like Paprika where the staff are also young emerging leaders and the organization is a stepping stone for them to enter into the industry. Therefore, it is anticipated that there be turn over and the Board is required to share their intrinsic knowledge while also holding the core values of Paprika as new leadership steps in over the years.
2. Community Consultation. One of the big things that Keshia wanted to investigate is making sure there was Indigenous leadership at the top level of the organization and that meant looking at the organizational structure. There hadn’t been someone in this position since Leslie McCue who brought the Indigenous Arts Program to Paprika. We wanted to make sure that this program was being properly supported. Was this something the community still wanted? Is Paprika still the right place for this program? What kind of outreach initiatives could we take on? This meant making phone calls to the Indigenous arts community and having some honest conversations. It’s so important to get feedback directly from the community. I may be one Indigenous artist but I am not from the Tkaronto territory so it isn’t for me to decide what kind of programming should be taking place there. I think it’s always useful/responsible to engage in conversation with community because ultimately that’s who the work is for.
3. It takes time. One of the things I had to recognize was that these aren’t aspects that take place immediately. Unfortunately, you don’t just have a conversation and update the website. It is a lot of work and expecting to implement every strategic initiative at once would be counterproductive to the goal of managing capacity. These things take place over time. I learned what would be most effective is mapping out a trajectory for these goals based on priority. Be thoughtful and patient with the process and focus on the long game.
