IRONBOUND CREATIVE RESIDENCY CASE STATEMENT

EXPLORE, CREATE, AND CONNECT WITH NATURE

Who We Are

We are a group of environmentalists, artists, and creative thinkers who are in the early stages of establishing a creative residency program on West Ironbound Island off the South Shore of Nova Scotia. Our organization, the Ironbound Creative Residency (ICR), emerged from a project organized by the Kingsburg Coastal Conservancy (KCC), whose mandate is to protect public access to coastal areas in the Kingsburg area.

During the KCC's project, trial residencies were carried out on the Island by more than a dozen volunteers from the local community. The core of these residency volunteers constitute the majority of ICR's founding members. The group is led by Janet Peace, who is Chair of the KCC, and includes Seth Congdon, Sharon Cranston, Marc Langlois, Allison Tremaine, and Tricia Snell.

Why West Ironbound Island?

West Ironbound Island is an extraordinarily beautiful and geologically significant island. While uninhabited by humans, the island includes a beautifully restored cabin and is home to a flock of sheep managed by a farmer who visits seasonally. Most importantly, the island environment offers ocean vistas, beaches, coves good for swimming as well as for catching sight of seals, an intricate network of sheep-trails, dramatic pyritic-shale cliffs, meadows full of berries, and sculptural tree formations.

This environment is provocative for creative thinkers of all kinds.

In the island environment, the volunteers -- who came from the local artist, scientist, and social innovation community -- experienced personal and creative breakthroughs. It is clear that the island causes a positive “disruption” in thought and creative process, a disruption that can lead to innovative problem-solving in a variety of disciplines.

Our Vision:  To inspire societal growth and innovation.

Our Mission:  ICR enables a diversity of creative individuals to explore, create, and connect with nature on the island and to carry their learning back into the greater society.

Our Goals:

• To provide a safe and accessible opportunity for creative individuals to experience a fully-immersed, self-guided residency on KCC's West Ironbound Island.
• To facilitate the sharing of the sights, sounds and spirit of West Ironbound's spectacular unspoiled habitat with the community at large.
• To celebrate and support KCC's ongoing nature conservancy efforts.

In the next months, the ICR plans to develop focused strategic objectives and tasks, a timeline, and a preliminary budget based on the above principles.

Contact:  ICR can be contacted through Janet Peace, at 902-766-4193.