The Evolution of the Artist-Run Cenntre

Event Information:
In 1866, a Presbyterian minister named George Monro Grant was living in Nova Scotia - the province most opposed to the federal union of Canada. Grant as a minister, and political advocate, used his sermons as a way to sway members of his community towards joining the rest of the provinces into one dominion of Canada. In his sermons Grant would often cite a line from the King James Bible towards his nation-building efforts:

From sea to shining sea.

This would become an essential component to not only Grant’s political advocacy but also a tagline attached to the Canadian Pacific Railway campaign - a proposal that would ultimately unite all provinces. This moment in our country’s history is full of events not to be celebrated; however something I find relevant to this conversation is how the railroad brought divided provinces together through a shared utility that, on its most basic level, enabled people to experience new ways of understanding this country through increased trade and mobility. Due to the size of our country there is an inherent lack of imagination we as Canadians have when it comes to understanding the perspectives of Canadians who we are separated from by great distances. Of course this lack of continuity, and connectivity, applies to Canadian arts communities as well. We see developing relationships between Vancouver and LA, and Toronto to New York, more than Vancouver and Calgary, or Winnipeg and Toronto.

This search for a national understanding is something AA Bronson, one of the members of General Idea and Art Metropole, sought to do with his 1987 exhibition titled - wouldn’t you know it - From Sea to Shining Sea. A tongue and cheek revival of George Monro Grant’s phrase, Bronson curated an exhibition of that was a history of artist-directed activity in Canada from the post-war period to 1986. In an introductory essay to the exhibition Bronson states that this project is an endeavour towards an understanding of the “motivations of various regions” and the associated contexts of their artist-run initiatives.

In recent years there has been a surge of artist-run activities with the creation, and closure, of galleries such as: Franz Kaka, The Loon, Roberta Pelan, Little Sister, 8-11, Bunker 2, Younger than Beyonce, Carrier Arts, AC Repair co., Dupont Projects, Towards, Crutch CAC, Xpace, The Table, G Gallery, Pool House, Howard Park Institute, Warner Gallery, Garden Avenue, Weird Things, and Pushmi pullyu.

So, I’ve been curious. I’m looking for a similar understanding of the motivations of these initiatives, which I hope in this discussion we can continue this Canadian preoccupation with trying to understand each other and open up a more localized discussion the current state of the artist-run centre in Toronto.

Guest Speakers:
Karen Carter (B.A.N.D), Jess Carroll (AC Repair Co.), Veronika Ivanova (Bunker 2), and Manden Murphy (Roberta Pelan), Michael Pace (Art Metropole)