While hopes remain high a major cultural facility will one day find a Memorial Avenue home, a group trying to create the centre is adopting a new moniker.
Fred Larsen, who serves as chair of the just christened Orillia Centre for Arts + Centre, said the new banner better reflects the community the group serves than its former Huronia Cultural Campus identity.
“It’s been a while coming,” Larsen said, adding his group is now busy working to complete the name transition by changing its website, social media, and print materials with everything expected to be finalized by next month.
“It probably goes back a couple of years when we started to consider the idea.”
Larsen said the name was originally tied to the group’s desire to re-purpose the former Huronia Regional Centre property to a major cultural campus that could serve as a type of Banff East in terms of exploring culture in all of its mediums and becoming a hub for writers, dancers , musicians and artists of every sort.
But with that possibility proceeding at a “snail’s pace” as the provincial government conducted a lengthy study to try to determine how to move forward with the property, Larsen’s group started to turn its sights farther afield and has hosted events at places like Lakehead University, Rama First Nation and the St. Paul’s Centre.
“When we started in 2015, we thought it (HRC) would have potential,” said Larsen, noting government reports on the property’s future haven’t provided a clear indication what will eventually become of it. “The HRC as our focus kind of had to be set on the back burner.”
But Larsen said there’s still a strong desire to establish a permanent presence somewhere in the city.
“We’ve always felt it’s important to partner with the city,” Larsen said, noting that while the HRC property might seem more of a distant dream nowadays, it’s still a desirable option.
“We have met with MPPs Jill Dunlop and Doug Downey and they’re both enthusiastic. We hope to put something together in the next few months and have a conversation with (Government and Consumer Services) Minister Bill Walker. It’s still in the cards and we’re hoping that at some point the government will say yes.”
But besides the HRC uncertainty, Larsen said the new name also serves to better reflect the area as it is today.
“We have heard from Rama First Nation and Beausoleil First Nation and the term ‘Huronia’ is not a name they’re comfortable with. It refers to the inhabitants who left here 400 years ago. What we’re doing is pretty much in the spirit of reconciliation.”
And even with the name change, Larsen said the goal of the Orillia Centre of Arts & Culture remains the same as its predecessor with desires to not only establish an exceptional cultural creative centre, but also to bring to area audiences artists that demonstrate artistic excellence and innovative approaches to their art form through performances, workshops and an eclectic variety of programming.
And Larsen said the new moniker better reflects the city’s rich cultural and artistic heritage that drew many of the group’s members here in the first place.
“I don’t think our mandate has particularly changed,” he said. “We were always hoping to establish a type of Banff East. That’s still our goal; very much part of what we hope to do is provide time and space (for artists, musicians and dancers) to create Canadian pieces.”
