Dear friends:
Amid growing concerns around Covid-19, SFU Galleries will temporarily close its exhibition spaces, postpone upcoming public programs and rethink how we can continue to present the practices of artists to our publics. We believe in a connection between what has been and what is to come, encouraged and enacted through aesthetic forms, and we believe there are meaningful lessons to take from the practices of artists as we relearn how to be together at this time.
The urgency of this threat, and the collective and necessary withdrawal from social life, offers pause to recognize our shared humanity. We also recognize that crisis of this sort amplifies injustice. Now is a time to reposition ourselves, both physically and ethically, in consideration of the most vulnerable: our elderly, those who suffer chronic illness, the undocumented, the homeless and the incarcerated; as well as to those whose labour is essential in this crisis, be they janitors, cashiers or nurses. There is no denying the links between our physical, moral and cultural health.
While SFU Galleries' physical spaces are closed, we remain committed to ways of gathering publics that engage with our social and political environments — what is changing about them, what histories they are anchored in and what futures our responses move us toward. Let's use this moment to critically interrogate how we form community, who we form it with, and how we can do better. Let's do this with care.
We will be updating our website with information about how our exhibitions are changing as we move through this:
BFA Graduating Exhibition 2020: Are We All We Are
—SFU Galleries
