Our Mission

By provoking creative and artistic interventions, Musagetes seeks to transform contemporary life.

We work with artists, cultural mediators, public intellectuals and other partners to develop new approaches to building community and culture.

We want to make a difference in how we think about ourselves; how we lead our lives; how we relate to one another; how we organize society; and how we shape the world around us. Musagetes believes that by integrating artistic creativity into modern life we can restore a sense of meaning and shared belonging in contemporary society that has been largely lost because of our over-reliance on economic and utilitarian measures of value.

The Musagetes Café gathers artists, public intellectuals and other thinkers-of all backgrounds and ages-to consider variations on the theme of social transformations through creative and artistic interventions. The Café encourages collaboration and the free exchange of ideas among social, civic, artistic and cultural leaders and entrepreneurs, leading to a world that is socially more just, environmentally more resilient and aesthetically more beautiful.

Download our Manifesto below.

The Founders

When Michael Barnstijn and Louise MacCallum were working at Research in Motion (RIM) - a high-risk creative enterprise - they had an insight into how essential artistic creativity is to the human experience.

Michael and Louise were among the earliest employees of RIM, the hugely successful high-tech firm in southern Ontario that created the popular BlackBerry wireless handheld device. With founder Mike Lazaridis and partner Doug Fregin, Michael was the first employee, served as its Vice-President of software, became a partner in the firm, and played a major role in developing the BlackBerry 950. Louise worked as a software engineer at RIM from 1994 to 1996.

When Michael retired from RIM in 1998, he and Louise decided to devote their resources - both money and time - to the arts, and, like other RIM executives, to launch Canadian-based initiatives (both are in Waterloo, Ontario) with an international reach. RIM Chairman and Co-CEO, Jim Balsillie, founded the Centre for International Governance Innovation, an international think tank that attracts scholars and intellectuals from around the world, dedicated to multilateral solutions to the world's most pressing governance challenges. RIM founder and Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis created the Perimeter Institute, a world-renowned centre for research in theoretical physics.

Michael and Louise's work is dedicated principally to the arts and culture. They have established endowment funds at the community foundations in Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph and donated substantially to artistic and cultural organizations.