This article offers a research update on a 3-year program initiated by the Kamloops Art Gallery and the University College of the Cariboo in Kamloops, British Columbia. The program is supported by a Community-University Research Alliance grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The collaboration focuses on the cultural future of small cities and how cultural and arts organizations work together (or fail to work together) in a small city setting. If not by definition, then certainly by default, culture is associated with big city life: big cities are equated commonly with big culture. The Cultural Future of Small Cities research group seeks to provide a more nuanced view of what constitutes culture in a small Canadian city. In particular, the researchers are exploring notions of social capital and community asset building: in this context visual and verbal representation, home, community, and the need to define a local sense of place have emerged as important themes.

This paper focuses on the cultural future of small cities and on how cultural and arts organizations work together (or fail to work together) in a small city setting.