MASC

MASC is an Ottawa-based community arts organization that brings the arts and culture alive for over 160,000 children, youth, and seniors each year. MASC offers schools and communities arts experiences led by professional artists that awaken the creative process, deepen cultural awareness, encourage engagement, and give vivid demonstration of Canada’s diversity.


MASC (Multicultural Arts in Schools and Communities) represents a roster of 55+ professional artists and artist groups of diverse backgrounds, who annually offer more than 2000 workshops, 800 performances and 100 in-depth artist-in-residence programs to 170,000 participants. Our artists identify with a wide range of diverse communities and offer programming in all artistic disciplines, including music, dance, drama, circus arts, literary arts, media and visual arts.




MASC also offers five annual multi-disciplinary arts festivals that bring in additional professional artists from across the country. MASC is an official-languages bilingual organization, with 40% of our programming offered in French.

MASC is committed to providing equal access to arts and cultural experiences to those living in equity deserving neighbourhoods, including rural communities. MASC offers a combination of financial assistance, scholarships and free programming for equity-deserving communities. Additionally, by bringing artists into communities, institutional barriers are removed by providing community members access to professional arts programming within their own communities. MASC brings the arts to the people.




MASC is known widely as a dynamic and energetic team of artists and staff who are deeply invested in the communities we serve. MASC’s outreach and advocacy for arts education and creative experiences is unparalleled in the region. MASC’s work includes many annual events, scholarship programs for equity-deserving communities, professional development opportunities for teachers, artists and staff, and new programs tailored specifically for seniors and street-involved youth. MASC’s name is synonymous with excellence, innovation and professionalism.

With the exception of the major festivals and the National Arts Centre, MASC has the largest audience of any arts organization in the city.

Officially, MASC stands for Multicultural Arts in Schools and Communities, however since our current roster of artists encompasses multiple forms of diversity in addition to being from a variety of cultural backgrounds, these days we go by, simply, MASC.