Logo for Common Weal Community Arts Common Weal Community Arts Inc

Common Weal Community Arts was born in 1992 through the production of Ka’ma’mo’pi’cik, a community play developed, researched, produced, and performed by Qu’Appelle Valley residents under the guidance of theatre professionals. The evolution of this play sought to draw out site-specific histories with careful attention paid to include perspectives from people traditionally omitted in mainstream representations of prairie-settler culture. The process was influenced heavily by Paulo Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which articulates that an outcome cannot be predetermined but that social change emerges from a process of dialogue and reflection in which the lived experience and knowledge of participants is prioritized. The principals, values, artistry, and community development processes employed through this project provided the basis for Common Weal to develop into a unique socially-engaged and community-minded professional arts organization. More than three decades later, we have grown from a grassroots collective to a professional non-profit arts organization.