ArtCityzenship is defined by your engagement with the MacLaren Art Centre: your membership is exactly what you want it to be.

ArtCityzenship is contiguous to ArtCity and key to the MacLaren Art Centre's mantra: people to art.

Several years ago, the City of Barrie designated all the public spaces of Barrie available for the placement of both permanent and temporary public sculpture, thus creating ArtCity.

The idea is that art is something we can enjoy everyday, as part of our regular routines. By placing it around the city, art is accessible - it doesn't matter what you're wearing, or what time of day it is, and you don't have to pay a fee to see it.

ArtCityzenship extends that idea - ensuring that membership in an art gallery is accessible, open to everyone, and requiring no predetermined activity or involvment.

It is up to you, the individual, to choose what membership means to you, and to define it according to your level of participation. As life gets busier, the ability to choose what information you receive becomes more and more valuable.

We know that static categories of membership really don't map all that well to the relationships people actually have with the MacLaren. People are volunteers, and partners, and the come to our Screen One film series. Some take classes, and are Radio Cafe regulars, while others sit on the Board and participate at Oasis. This kind of multi-involvement is key to what makes the MacLaren the vibrant, humming place it is, and we wanted a mechanism to foster each individual relationship to the MacLaren.

Essentially, we place the individual at the centre of the relationship and say, 'what do you want from the MacLaren?'

By giving individuals the ability to choose what information they receive, and thus what activities they participate in, for no cost (unless you choose to subscribe to ArtCity magazine), we allow you, the people of the area to define the nature of your membership. You will very likely carry on as before.

The difference is twofold; first, on a philosophical level, we now have a word for what it is you're up to as you move from volunteering to attending events to eating lunch: you're an ArtCityzen exercising your ArtCityzenship in ArtCity!

And two, more practically speaking, we've given you the tools to manage what information you need, and what you tell us via My MacLaren.

If you haven't already - sign up today! Click on the Register button at the top left.

If you are already a MacLaren member email maclaren@maclarenart.com for your login name and password.

Choose to get email newsletters about activities and events directly to your inbox, send ecards to friends, and - coming soon - the ability to collect MacPoints towards all sorts of MacLaren events and activities.