Vision
The Burnaby Festival of Learning presents inspiring opportunities for Burnaby residents to connect, co-create, and celebrate diverse forms of learning. Through vibrant and thought-provoking curated and community-led events, the festival enables attendees to learn with each other and with local experts.
Values
Lifelong learning: we honour and respect the value of lived experience and traditional expertise, and we endeavor to foster diverse and innovative forms of community-based education that enrich the lives of Burnaby residents.
Relationship, authenticity and meaningful connection: we believe that genuine, healthy relationships are the foundation upon which we can connect, collaborate, share, and deliver socially, environmentally and culturally relevant .
Equity, diversity and inclusion: we are committed to championing equity, diversity, and inclusion throughout festival planning, development, programming and implementation.
Sustainability and transformational change: we strive to effect change, to address critical societal issues, and contribute to the public good through community capacity building and sustainable practice.
Partnerships: we value the continued and evolving partnerships that bring the festival depth and diversity.
Character
We build each year’s festival with two primary goals in mind:
- Connection – we want to enrich the “relational fabric” among the people of Burnaby, those who want to share their wisdom, expertise, and knowledge, and those who have questions, are curious, or just simply want to learn something new.
- Capacity Building – we strive to make a festival that deepens the ability, capacity, and skill of Burnaby residents and visitors, strengthening our vibrant community and generously giving back to our guests.
Curatorial Purpose for 2023
Belonging is an idea or a feeling that most people “get”. But when you sit with it, when you slowly feel your way through what belonging can mean, it becomes clear that we have very diverse experiences of belonging and that there is much we can learn from that diversity. In a time of increasing polarity and disruptive questions about place, land, ownership, access and inequality, we feel like you – the people who make up our vibrant Burnaby community – are the best people to determine how we might explore belonging to learn something from it. The festival’s values guide us in working in partnership with Burnaby residents – you, your friends and neighbours – to bring forth your expertise, lived experiences, valuable skills and inspiring artistry so that we all might deepen our questions about belonging, and so that we might perhaps come to understand more about what it means to live well on this land with each other.