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One of Winnipeg’s most prominent arts funding bodies has named a new top executive.
The Winnipeg Arts Council has officially announced that Dominic Lloyd has been named the executive director of the organization. Lloyd has worked with the Winnipeg Arts Council for nearly fifteen years, and has worked on several notable projects, most recently coordinating the City of Song program that commemorated Winnipeg’s 150th birthday. Lloyd succeeds previous executive director Carol Phillips, who retired in 2024.
“The Board of Directors is excited to have Dominic take on the role of Executive Director at the Winnipeg Arts Council,” said Winnipeg Arts Council board chair Andrew McLaren in a statement. “His deep connection to and knowledge of the arts in our city provides a strong foundation for success in his new role.”
“It’s a huge honour,” said Lloyd in a conversation on Morning Light on his appointment. “To be able to be entrusted to bring my own vision and leadership to the organization to be part of the community, it’s daunting and thrilling at the same time.”
After moving to Winnipeg in 2004 from Dawson City, Yukon to run the West End Cultural Centre, Lloyd joined the arts council in 2009 to manage the Cultural Capital of Canada project, which he said had the ethos of creating art for all. It’s an ethos that he says will guide his tenure with the council in his new role. “We really believe that the arts are for all,” he says, and then adds with a laugh, “Not all art is for all, but there is art for all people. That certainly exists in Winnipeg.”
This wide-reaching approach also exists to serve a vision for sustainability and accessibility that the Winnipeg Arts Council aims to take in an increasingly uncertain arts and culture landscape. “We’re at a very interesting time for a variety of reasons,” Lloyd acknowledges, citing audience hesitancy to return to the performing arts spaces post-public health lockdowns, the emergence of generative AI, and geopolitical uncertainties as factors in that uncertainty for arts organizations. “All of these things are definitely issues that the arts community writ large is facing. And, you know, Winnipeg as a sort of microcosm of the world is going to experience that as well.”
The solution for these new factors in Lloyd’s estimation is to continue to establish interpersonal relationships. “One of the most valuable things that an artist can do... is to sit down with another artist and just see where things take them. That’s how creation happens.”
For Lloyd, the role of the arts council is to support the entrepreneurial spirit of artists. “People like to talk about innovation in the arts and personally, I believe artists are innovators by definition. That’s what they’re here to do. And, you know, as the council, our job is to listen and follow and support. So, finding ways to assist artists and to be able to hear what’s going on and to listen to people and find out what the community wants, what the community needs. That’s definitely a priority for us.”