Southern Alberta Art Gallery

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Central to the Southern Alberta Art Gallery's mandate is our commitment to fostering the work of contemporary artists and therefore we operate in an expanded field of cultural production. Exhibitions, are but one component of this field, which has grown to embrace artist research, reflection, dialogue and experimentation. Moreover, many of today's artists no longer have the production of objects at the core of their practice, opting instead to investigate social relationships, research-oriented encounters, performance or process-based events. To satisfy these conditions, SAAG routinely offers alternative venues and working situations, most notably through our residency and open studio programs. Intersection Residency International in its scope, this yearly program invites artists to participate in a month-long, self-directed residency at the Gushul Studio in the Crowsnest Pass. Artists are given the freedom to experiment with new ideas and mediums, flesh out old ideas or begin research on a new trajectory in their practice. In 2009 SAAG hosted UK artist Kelly Richardson whose video and photography-based practice puts its own spin on the traditions of Canadian landscape art and the photoconceptualists of the West Coast. During her residency at the Gushul, Richardson focused on the production of a new multi-channel video installation transforming local landscapes with her characteristic use of high-end special effects. Works developed during her residency will premiere in a solo exhibition at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery in 2011. Open Studio Structured on a case-by-case basis, Open Studio is an opportunity for artists to work on-site at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery. It may serve as a place to produce new art objects, or as a forum for dialogue and social encounters, but in both cases the studio becomes a dynamic public site. In 2009 SAAG developed three distinct Open Studio projects in the Storefront Gallery of our temporary home. RaphaГ«lle de Groot invited the local community and a group of art students from The University of Lethbridge to manipulate and re-envision everyday objects donated by the public. Doug Scholes used the studio for casting debris collected from sites around the city that he repaired and maintained in partnership with the local homeless shelter. 12 Point Buck, an artist duo formed by Chai Duncan and Leila Armstrong, seemed to straddle the line, transforming the Storefront into an exhibition space, a performative site, and a more traditional painting studio.

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