Join representatives of some of Halifax's (semi-)autonomous art spaces for a community discussion of current developments. With the recent eviction of the The Khyber Centre for the Arts and the Roberts Street Social Centre, and the precarious future of the Anna Leonowens Gallery, these seem like dark days for the independent visual arts in Halifax. Yet bold new ideas are being actualized and communities are being mobilized. Eyelevel Gallery has courageously embraced its nomadic reputation and Platform Halifax is seeking to establish new shared art space in the city.
Meanwhile, old problems have new faces: the difficulties of sustaining artist-run and autonomous art spaces on the margin of Canada; the relationship of art/space to gentrification; the difficult dance of art, space, politics and policy; the power of money and the powerlessness of its absence; the vexed question of art's responsibility to community (and community's responsibility to art); and the state(s) and fate(s) of the arts in an age of austerity.
Yet beyond the habitual gloom that preoccupies the arts in Halifax today, this roundtable seeks also to ponder and reimagine the possibilities, potentials and practicalities of building art, space and autonomy in the current economic and cultural climate.
The Art and Activism at NSCAD group, in collaboration with The Radical Imagination Project, invite you to a discussion about the past, present and future.
Confirmed(ish) speakers:
Katie Belcher (Eyelevel Gallery)
Melanie Colosimo (Platform Halifax/Stockholm)
Emily Davidson (Roberts Street Social Centre)
Eleanor King (Anna Leonowens Gallery)
Caroline Woolard (TBD New York City, OurGoods Barter Network)
TBA (Khyber Centre for the Arts)
For more info, contact Max Haiven (mhaiven[at]nscad[dot]ca)(902-494-8261)
The site for the Halifax local of The Media Co-op has been archived and will no longer be updated. Please visit the main Media Co-op website to learn more about the organization.