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Community Art Gallery

The City of New Westminster is excited to announce a new partnership with the Arts Council of New Westminster, who will take the lead in the development and curation of the annual exhibitions at the Anvil Centre Community Art Gallery in a three-year pilot project starting in 2023.

The Community Art Gallery, located on the third floor of the Anvil Centre, features a rotating series of community exhibitions that support local artists both emerging and established. Exhibiting artists are featured in group or solo exhibitions, as well as curated projects that reflect the interests of the community and align with the City’s commitment to equity, social justice, and truth and reconciliation.

Through this partnership, City staff will continue to provide support for scheduling, logistics, and events, while the Arts Council will take over coordinating and curating the annual exhibition program, with both organizations working together to promote the program to artists and audiences. This decision is in alignment with the City’s Arts Strategy, which encourages active relationships, unique collaborations and partnerships between municipality, artists, and arts organizations to advance the arts in New Westminster.

The Arts Council of New Westminster is a non-profit arts organization that has operated the Queen’s Park Art Gallery for 30 years and implemented a range of satellite programs, such as the annual New Westminster Cultural and New West Craft. The Arts Council has strong relationships with local artists and other local arts organizations; their mission to foster, support, and promote the arts in New Westminster, along with their well-defined strategic plan, aligns with the City’s art goals.

For more information on how to exhibit with the Community Art Gallery please contact Arts Council New West at or call 604.525.3244.

The Community Art Gallery is located on the 3rd floor of Anvil Centre, 777 Columbia Street, New Westminster.  Admission is free.

 

Changing the Conversation

September 25 - November 22, 2023
 
 
Exhibition Statement:
 
Communities across Canada are experiencing a housing crisis involving rising unaffordability, housing insecurity, and homelessness. Housing and homelessness are often polarizing topics to discuss. 
 
Changing the Conversation (CTC) is a three-year project that examines how public spaces and public art can facilitate a healthier discourse about housing in the community.
 
The perspectives of those most impacted by housing insecurity are frequently left out of the discourse. People forget the very human faces of this crisis. Market-driven housing  policies and other systemic forces often seek to invisibilize housing precarity rather than alleviate it. If we are committed to housing as a human right, we need to listen to those who have endured housing injustices.
 
What are the struggles, hopes and dreams of people experiencing housing insecurity? What possibilities for meaningful change and solidarity might we find if we pause to delve beyond headlines and statistics?
 
This exhibit centers the intersectional, multi-faceted stories that exist on the frontlines of the housing crisis. It features the work of CTC Artists in Residence Amal Ishaque and PJ Patten and community members in New Westminster with lived experiences of housing insecurity.
 

 

Past Exhibition:

Avifauna: Sight & Perception

Through Our Eyes

The Eternal Dance

What Housing Means to Me

Recalled

Intuitive Art

Cedar Sage and Sweetgrass

Art Talks 

ideate

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The Abstracted View 

New West Portraits

Identity

Three Visions: Walking in New West

AiR Works by Anvil Centre & Solid Waste/Recycling Artists in Residence

Unity of Spirits: Surprising Screens

Worlds of Light & Shadow

Limitless

Unity of Spirits

Big House

ArchiTEXTURE: Hard Edges in a Soft Media

Youth & Reconciliation

Things with Wings

Unity of Spirits

Uncover

Teacher's Lounge

Diverse/City

Boulevard Gardens of New Westminster

Longevity

The Dichotomy of Change

Faces and Places

The Art of History

Expression of Spring

Let Me Count the Ways

Cover Story: Album Art Reimagined

Fleeting Moments