Art places. Culture spaces. Creative Economy.At the centre of a network of urbanists, artists and public space specialists, my passion is supporting the Canadian creative economy and catalyzing new opportunities for our cultural and creative industries. Here, and abroad. I do this through several means and with great collaborators. Believing deeply that creative access to public space and central real estate is an essential ingredient for the cultural sector to thrive, I have specialized over the past decade in cultural place development: particularly toward contemporary community hubs, affordable creative workspace, and creative industry clusters. My projects have bridged private impact investment, contemporary mixed-use development design, and community need, into new vibrant cultural platforms and welcoming public spaces. I've spearheaded temporary and permanent projects and contributed to other iconic cultural place projects in several capacities such as Development, Direction, Curation, Community. I bring a rare balance of vision and actualization.My career is centered around instigating new projects across the creative industries, designing contemporary mixed-use culture hubs and placemaking programs with superior teams, and delivering toolkits for successful creative community places in towns and cities. I am interested in community co-imagination, the importance of retaining creative talent, and preserving space for creativity and local cultural exchange in urban development. I have participated in Economic Development and Culture working groups for the City of Toronto, presented at Canadian Urban Institute events, and Advisor at George Brown College’s School of Design. My work has been featured in publications such as the Huffington Post, Toronto Life, Vogue, and Fast Company. As an activist, I am deeply passionate about protecting the health of, and access to, fresh water. Over the past ten years, I have created several public art programs, permanent murals and artful educational materials to stoke awareness of critical issues and provoke a feeling of love and guardianship for our Great Lakes and fresh water systems. Portfolio -->jacqwest.com