When we were trying to decide who to feature in the profile for this issue of the Update we were surprised to discover that Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography (Studio 120) had not yet had their moment in the spotlight. The gallery and its activities have made the pages of the newsletter countless times over the years, and our surprise was in part because Gallery 44 has been a vital part of the community at 401 Richmond since the beginning. As they approach their 30 th anniversary, a large chunk of their time has been spent making a home in these four walls - a home that includes one of the last wet darkroom facilities in the city, a resource centre, and three gallery spaces.
We spent some time with Director Sara Angelucci talking about how Gallery 44 came to be and what’s in store for the future. Gallery 44 was founded in 1979 by a group of Ontario College of Art and Design graduates, including tenant Simon Glass (Studio 359), who wanted to create a darkroom collective. As time passed the collective grew to include casual exhibitions and eventually took on an education component that has continued to be at the core of Gallery 44’s programming. The gallery became one of the first artist-run centres in Canada that today joins the company of roughly one hundred other designated facilities. “From the get go, the gallery has always had this compliment of production, exhibition, and education and those have remained our core programs over the years. I think we’re one of very few artist-run centres in the country that provide an extensive program of education for adults and youth.”
Although Gallery 44 is well known for its innovative exhibitions of contemporary Canadian and international photography – which is easily visible if you walk into the gallery and pick up one of the exhibition brochures or publications, what is often not as well known is the numerous other components of Gallery 44’s programming.
Gallery 44 has a hefty membership of close to 160 artists. These artists have twenty-four hour access to the darkroom facilities and also take advantage of the resource centre and Members Gallery that offers exhibition opportunities to twenty-four members each year. Gallery 44 designs a lot of their facility around feedback they receive from members about their needs and what will provide the best level of support for artistic practice. The Members Gallery, which has gained members contracts with commercial dealers through their exhibitions, is clearly beneficial to members and for this reason will likely undergo some renovations along with other production spaces in the gallery. This is all pending the approval of an Ontario Trillium Foundation grant that Sara just completed. Fingers crossed.
As Sara explains, “a lot of people join because they want access to the facilities, but they also want a sense of community. Being an Artist is sometimes a pretty lonely thing, so it’s very exciting for people to meet with other artists at openings, events, and fundraisers. The members always join together to do an exhibition for the CONTACT Photography Festival and developing those relationships is really important to them.”
As a new addition to the other education programs that Gallery 44 runs throughout the year, this summer the gallery ran a camp for teens called Photomagic. There wasn’t any canoeing or food fights at this summer camp – the students spent one week doing an intensive hands-on photography program being led by two recent photography graduates. “Part of our mandate is to treat artists as professionals; pay artist’s fees and maintain a facility where they create work. These opportunities help artists and emerging artists who are serious and committed to photography get great experience. We are always trying to have our programs reach a wide range of people to serve our community in various ways from developing audience to developing artists.”
Gallery 44 maintains a really special connection to youth inspiring a new generation of photographers and art makers. Cameralinks is a week long show of work by elementary and secondary school students from the Toronto District School Board where students are able to experience how their work communicates with an audience. Many teachers often build Cameralinks into their curriculum. Everything that is submitted is showed and Sara is thrilled to meet students who have shown work in the past – “we’ve had people come to us years later and say ‘my first show was in Cameralinks and I love Gallery 44!’”
The shift in photography from analog to digital is being felt by Gallery 44 and they are adjusting their programming and facilities to accommodate the change. In keeping their wet darkrooms and other equipment in operation, they have become one of the few places where artists can still handle film, however, they have also recently added some digital work stations. “Our mandate is to be cutting-edge and to be responsive to what’s going on in current practice. As photography has shifted, so has what we have exhibited and we’re now moving into a more hybrid production facility. Digital photography is huge and we’re seeing more artists submitting multi-lens approaches to their work in photography – for example photo-based artists doing a lot more video or web-based projects. As a result our exhibitions represent a wider range of practices. Being photo-based is still at the core of our programming but at the same time we’re interested in that dialogue between photography and other media and how artists are shifting back and forth.”
Another exciting new development has been the creation of an Artist-in-Residence program made possible through a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, the second for an emerging artist outside of southern Ontario, and the third for a curator/writer. The program will take the artist from being a resident, to showing work as part of Gallery 44’s emerging artist show PROOF, to having something written about their work in the show brochure. As Sara explains, “finally, the third resident will work on a new publication that we’re doing that will focus on sixteen years of our PROOF exhibition of emerging artists and include the two artists in residence.”
Gallery 44 certainly has their work cut out for them and the staff somehow still find time to practice art, curate, and write. They also pull together a fantastic fundraiser called Wall to Wall that you can catch during the 401 Richmond Holiday Marketplace from Dec. 6 – 9.
Gallery 44 Staff from left to right: Exhibition Coordinator Stephanie Rogerson, Education Coordinator Danielle Bleackley, Director Sara Angelucci, and Development Coordinator Gaye Jackson.
Students work in the Gallery 44 darkrooms during Photomagic summer camp
Photomagic summer camp students on a photo-taking field trip
