| The uses for a van range from family vacations to clandestine sex, and the TRUCK Gallery has found one more. The Calgary art gallery wanted more space to house its exhibits, so it acquired a camper van, filled it with art and started touring it around small-town Alberta.
TRUCK isn’t the only arts group to feel the space crunch in the city – a recent city study found that artists and ordinary citizens alike feel there isn’t enough gallery, theatre and public art space available. However, artists in Calgary and elsewhere have managed to find some novel solutions.
Teaming up
Assembling a posse to go in on a space together is a well-tested and often successful way of sharing costs. In 1988, a group of Edmonton artists formed a non-profit group, raised some money and took out a lease on Harcourt House, an abandoned building that belonged to the provincial government. Two decades later, the centre is still going strong and houses three galleries, 42 studio spaces and two classrooms. The building is paid for with studio rentals, fundraising and government grants.
"It’s worked incredibly well," says Edmund Haakonson, an artist and president of the centre’s board. "It’s been a successful model for us." The centre has always managed to balance its budget, partly by sharing upkeep costs with the provincial government, he says.
In Toronto, 401 Richmond employs a similar model. The building has 30 tenants, ranging from artist-run centres to commercial galleries and magazine offices. The rent money is enough to keep the project financially solvent and subsidize the rent on studio space, says Erin McKeen, communications director for the company that owns the building.
Closer to home, The Joe Strummer Memorial Society is trying to secure a space for all-ages music shows in Calgary. The society is in the process of registering as a non-profit group and is fundraising towards the lease of a space. "It’s something that is so desperately needed in this town," says Jen Burke, a working member of the society. "There’s a lot of arts groups active in Calgary but not a lot of space for them to work in." The group is pursuing several sources of potential revenue, including staging benefit shows and pressing the municipal and provincial governments for grants.
The need for space hit home recently when the group lost the venue it had been using for shows. The society has already looked at a few spaces and hopes to open its doors in some form within a couple of years, with the ultimate goal of buying a building.
Using public space
Store fronts, the Plus 15 System and public parks are all available for use by arts groups. In addition to its camper van, the TRUCK Gallery uses the Closet Gallery on 17th Avenue S.W. to display art on the street. And it doesn’t hurt to ask business owners if you can put art in their windows, says TRUCK director Renato Vitic. "Most people are willing to listen," he says. TRUCK and four other groups maintain galleries in the the Plus 15 System, courtesy of the Centre for the Performing Arts. Located in a walkway just above the centre, the spaces have been available to galleries for 10 years and even generated some controversy last winter by displaying racy pictures to passersby.
Public space is also available for theatre and music, says Vitic. The city parks department grants permits for concerts and other performances, and Stephen Avenue is sometimes available for street theatre.
In other cities, artist-run centres have taken the use of public space a step father by relying entirely on public space to house their work. Lethbridge’s Trap/Door houses its exhibits in other galleries and the university campus, while Montreal’s Dare-Dare borrowed a page from TRUCK’s book and set up its gallery inside a van in a public park.
Government help
Despite the hemming and hawing of Calgary’s government when it comes to space, other city governments have shown that it’s possible to give space and money to arts groups. Toronto is turning its old streetcar barns into space for artists to live and work and theatre groups to rehearse. The project will also include a greenhouse and office space for arts and non-profit groups. In Edmonton, a city-funded group started the Arts Habitat project and opened a building to provide space for artists to live and work. Called ArtsHab One, the space has been up and running since 1999, offering 13 studios and apartments to local artists. |
Copyright ©2007 FFWD. All rights reserved.