British Columbian Artist Run Centre Events
221A
221A Artist Run Centre is a non-profit organization that supports and facilitates dialogue between contemporary art and design. 221A’s programme manifests a unique interdisciplinary community by presenting work that creates new knowledge extensions between existing art and design practices.
http://221a.ca/
Access
Established in 1991, Access Gallery is dedicated to emergent and experimental art practices. The gallery strives to spark critical conversation between artists and audiences alike through presentations of diverse views and creative practices of local, national and international artists, curators and cultural practitioners.
www.accessgallery.ca
Alternator Gallery
The Alternator Gallery for Contemporary Art in Kelowna, B.C., is operated by the Okanagan Artists Alternative Association, a non-profit society created in 1989.
http://www.alternatorgallery.com
Artspeak
Artspeak is a non-profit artist run centre established in 1986. Artspeak presents contemporary practices, innovative publications, bookworks, editions, talks and events that encourage a dialogue between visual art and writing.
http://artspeak.ca
Balcone
Balcone is a nonprofit society that presents contemporary art projects in a variety of situations and spaces throughout Vancouver. Without a permanent location, we operate with mobile offices and flexible programs that are reactive to social, political and economic challenges within the local arts community.
http://www.balcone.org
Current Events
Cineworks
Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society is an artist-run production and exhibition centre that supports independent filmmakers and media artists. Through initiatives that foster dialogue and experimentation with cinematic practices, we engage our membership and the broader community through the transformative power of the moving image.
http://www.cineworks.ca
Gallery Gachet
Gallery Gachet is a unique artist-run centre located in VancouverÕs Downtown Eastside. Gachet is a collectively-run exhibition and studio space built to empower participants as artists, administrators and curators. We strive to provide a focal point for dialogue amongst outsider/dissident artists. Through artistic means, we aim to demystify and challenge issues related to mental health and social marginalization in order to educate the public and promote social and economic justice.
http://www.gachet.org
grunt gallery
Founded in 1984, grunt interprets its history and programming as a variety of initiatives around evolving concepts of community. Our role has been to act as an intersection between various cultural groups based on aesthetics, medium, or identity.
http://www.grunt.ca
Intermission Artists Society
Intermission Artists Society provides a support base for artists working within a contemporary context. Intermission curates and facilitates cross-disciplinary projects and events in non-traditional spaces, and fosters the growth of art in experimental and emerging forms.
http://www.inter-mission.org
Kootenay School of Writing
Founded in 1984, the Kootenay School of Writing offers inexpensive courses (in writing, editing, and publishing), sponsors colloquia and critical talks on writing, visual art, and politics, hosts reading series with local, Canadian, and international writers, and publishs a Writing magazine.
http://kswnet.org
LIVE
LIVE, VancouverÕs biennial international showcase of contemporary performance art, has over the past decade presented more than 400 local, national and international emerging, established and celebrated artists. While LIVE continues to explore the cutting edge of global performance art in new and novel ways, we remain committed to a vision of fostering meaning to promote discourse between our local artists and what is happening elsewhere. The next edition of LIVE is planned for September 2013.
http://livebiennale.ca/
Malaspina Printmakers
Malaspina is a nonprofit artist-run centre that supports the development of printmaking as a contemporary art form and promotes and preserves traditional print practice. The centreÕs main objectives are to advance knowledge of printmaking in the community and facilitate the critical and technical exploration of printmaking in contemporary visual art practice.
http://www.malaspinaprintmakers.com/
Ministry of Casual Living
Formed to provide artists from all disciplines with an accessible venue for experimentation, the MOCL is committed to promoting critical, self-reflective discourse, and integrating the artistic process into all aspects of everyday life.
http://www.ministryofcasualliving.ca
New Forms Festival
New Forms Media Society is a non-profit society and media arts organization founded in 2000 that nurtures and connects local and international arts, science and grassroots communities through the annual New Forms Festival. The NFF promotes and facilitates multimodal art works and engages in discussion on their role in our cultural environment by promoting independent and groundbreaking artists as part of a larger, international, multi-media festival movement. The NFF aims to showcase and increase awareness of new media art, music, film, technology, installation and performance accessible to a wide audience.
Http://www.newformsfestival.com
On Main
On Main (On The Cutting Edge Productions Society est. 1985) is an artist-run organization located in Vancouver dedicated to encouraging, producing and presenting new art by emerging and established artists that is challenging, contemporary and engaging to local, national and international audiences. On Main democratizes access to art by claiming and recontextualizing conventional and new forms of private, public and virtual spaces for art and artistic practices that encourage intersections between culturally diverse generations of artists, artistic disciplines and the public.
http://onmaingallery.com
Open Space
For over thirty years, Open Space has been a substantive entity for professional artists who utilize hybrid and experimental approaches to art-making, as well as a touchstone for young and emerging artists.
http://www.openspace.ca
Or Gallery
The Or maintains an ongoing commitment to the presentation of contemporary art that is experimental, challenging, and critical. The Or Gallery was created in 1983 and is currently located downtown Vancouver, Canada.
http://www.orgallery.org
Current Events
Other Sights
Other Sights operates as a collective of Vancouver-based individuals with expertise in curation, project management, presentation, delivery and promotion of temporary art projects in public spaces. They collaborate and share resources with organizations and individuals in order to present projects that consider the aesthetic, economic and regulatory conditions of public places and public life.
http://www.othersights.ca
Project Space
Project Space examines, challenges and supports the redefinition of roles of physical and print spaces through the production and circulation of publications, exhibitions, workshops, lectures and readings. Being situated at an intersection of visual arts, literary arts and/or critical designÑpublication presents a unique space of inquiry that is often complemented by interdisciplinary practice, collaboration or co-production. Our projects reflect this context, engaging emerging and established local, national and international artists, curators, writers, editors, graphic designers and publishers in critical, conceptual and/or interdisciplinary practices.
http://projectspace.ca/
Projectile Publishing Society
The Projectile Publishing Society is a non profit society located in Vancouver, Canada. They are a project based publishing house.
http://projectilepublishing.ca
Current Events
Shudder Gallery
Shudder Gallery supports emerging artists throughout Canada. Encouraging national participation from artists and performers across Canada for the last 5 years, Shudder Gallery aims to promote all forms of contemporary creative communication and visual arts for the emerging artist. Opening a dialogue within the community and across Vancouver, Shudder is a platform for discussion and discovery.
http://www.shuddergallery.com
VIVO Media Arts
VIVO MEDIA ARTS CENTRE, incorporated in 1973 as the Satellite Video Exchange Society (SVES), is VancouverÕs oldest media arts access centre. Our diverse membership gather around the tools and material means of production to invent new understandings, new genres, and new friendships. VIVO builds an audience of makers, organizers and critics through artist
residencies, workshops, performances, exhibitions, video distribution, and curatorial and archival research in Western CanadaÕs largest video archive of over 4200 titles.
http://www.videoinstudios.com
Western Front
The Western Front Society is one of Canada’s first artist-run-centres. For over 30 years, it has developed an international reputation as a centre for experimental art practice and performance.
http://front.bc.ca
Current Events
W2
W2 is a globally-networked community media arts organisation located in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. W2 aims to break the digital divide, promote social inclusion and cross-cultural dialogue by specializing in multi-platform broadcasting, telepresence, interactive live screens, mobile technology and open web through the delivery of a wide variety of urban digital culture initiatives, residency and educational programs.
http://www.creativetechnology.org
Current Events
Xchanges Gallery and Studios
Xchanges is a member-driven artists’ cooperative operating a gallery and affordable studios for practicing artists. It houses eighteen individual and group studios, clay studios, and cooperative printmaking and photography studios.
http://www.xchangesgallery.org