Stephanie McKay, Communications Manager at Remai Modern (Saskatoon, Canada)

Stephanie McKay is Communications Manager at Remai Modern in Saskatoon, where she leads a small but mighty marketing and communications team for one of Canada’s leading contemporary arts spaces. Her areas of expertise include media relations, strategic communications, issues management/crisis communications, and internal communications. Prior to working in communications, McKay was a reporter at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix for 12 years, where she covered local arts and culture for more than a decade. During that time, she served on the Polaris Music Prize jury, including as a member of the grand jury in 2013.

McKay is passionate about Saskatoon's arts and culture community and telling its stories. Her hobbies include kayaking, testing out new restaurants and spending time with her dog.

Bridging the Trust Gap: How an “Elitist” Art Museum Reached its Community

In October 2017, a new contemporary art museum opened on the Canadian prairies. On the world stage, Saskatoon’s Remai Modern was greeted with excitement and curiosity. At home, the conversation was decidedly less enthusiastic. The shuttering of a beloved old art museum, combined with age-old complaints about spending at City Hall, prompted early—but not totally unexpected—concerns from the public.

Perceptions that the new museum was cold, elitist, and way too expensive were a bit more surprising. So was feedback about the “unappealing,” “boring,” and “offensive” art.

In 2020, a new executive team arrived during a global health crisis, creating the perfect opportunity to change the course of Remai Modern’s flagging reputation and chart a path to become the museum Saskatoon truly needed.

Big changes, like scrapping the museum’s admission fees and increasing the focus on celebrating the collection and artists from the region, led to a surge in visitor numbers. A new marketing and communications campaign, Art That Bridges, reinforced Remai Modern as a welcoming, accessible, and inclusive space where you don’t have to worry about what you wear or how much you make.

In this talk, Communications Manager Stephanie McKay describes how the museum went from controversial to celebrated in its own community, and the key communications lessons that have come from building and rebuilding a cultural institution’s reputation in its first eight years.