Shawn Van Sluys

Van Sluys is the Executive Director of Musagetes, a foundation that experiments with ways to connect communities in small Canadian and European cities more deeply with creativity. Musagetes works with artists, cultural mediators and partners to develop new approaches to enhance the impact of the arts on culture and communities, policy makers and the general public. He is also the Vice-President of the Guelph Jazz Festival and of the Ammirato Culture House in Lecce, Italy.

His research and writing encompass the relationship between art and the imagination, the role of the arts in transforming society, and the contemplative, poetic, and lyric frames of the arts. Prior to his current position, he was the first Executive Director of the Canadian Art Museum Directors' Organization. He is also a member of the Executive Team of the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) at the University of Guelph, where he leads the Practice-Based Research working group.