Walid Raad, Sweet Talk: Commissions (Beirut 1994). Installation view, Audain Gallery, 2017. Photo: Blaine Campbell.
Audain Gallery's Next Chapter
Since 2012, SFU Galleries has led the curatorial program and staffing of Audain Gallery as one of its three exhibition spaces sited across the university’s Vancouver and Burnaby campuses. Alongside its professional exhibitions, which have presented the work of over 175 local, national, and international artists, SFU Galleries has worked in close partnership with the School for the Contemporary Arts (SCA), proudly supporting the Audain Visual Artists in Residence (AVAIR) projects as well as hosting annual undergraduate and graduate student exhibitions.
In January SFU Galleries will transfer programming and operational oversight of Audain Gallery back to the School for the Contemporary Arts. For the Galleries, this change is part of the planning towards the opening of the Marianne and Edward Gibson Art Museum on Burnaby Mountain in Fall 2025. With 12,000 square feet of galleries, programming and studio spaces, the Gibson Art Museum will create new and far expanded opportunities to support artists in the research, production and presentation of their work before audience communities.
Through the SCA, Audain Gallery will re-activate its origins in 2010 as a multi-disciplinary exhibition space focused on student-led initiatives and AVAIR projects. This shift deepens the SCA and Galleries’ shared commitments to undergraduate and graduate learning through public engagement, which creates important opportunities for students to test ideas and approaches before audiences. Audain Gallery’s next chapter will continue a long history of SFU student exhibition spaces, extending back to the Perel Gallery, which opened at 112 West Hastings Street in 1987.
As we remain close colleagues and friends, SFU Galleries (soon to become the Gibson Art Museum) will continue to mount annual satellite projects at Audain Gallery in partnership with the SCA. Both SFU Galleries and the SCA are thrilled to open this next chapter of generative collaboration, engaged learning and opportunities for artists.
For more information on the SCA’s upcoming AVAIR project with artist Oscar Tuazon, opening in Audain Gallery January 16, 2025, visit the SCA website.
