Looking for a fun and family-friendly activity on a Saturday afternoon? Visit the Gallery for Crafternoon in our Creativity Centre. This month we are excited to feature artist Lauren Kurmey, our upcoming Shop Feature Artist! 

Lauren will lead participants through a drawing workshop, demonstrating how to capture animal characteristics in art. Using local animals, participants will learn how to recognize and recreate the features of our familiar Lethbridge friends! The workshop is appropriate for all ages and skill levels. Whether you’re a confident drawer or interested in developing a new skill, this workshop is for you! 

We will be hosting two sessions, one from 1 - 2:30 PM and one from 2:30 - 4:00 PM. This program is free with Gallery admission and all supplies are provided. Attendees are welcome to bring their own materials and sketchbooks if preferred, including digital drawing materials. Registration is encouraged. You can register by contacting Program & Event Coordinator Heather Kehoe hkehoe@saag.ca or in person at the desk. You can also sign up on the day. Please ensure you arrive on time for the beginning of your session. 

Lauren Kurmey is a self-taught artist who draws, crafts, and infuses good vibes into all this cool stuff! She’d been drawing, saying hi to wildlife, and sitting too close to the screen since childhood, putting her heart and soul into her products. Sharing them with like-minded people is a dream come true. From familiar nature friends to anime & video game favourites, her work invites you to surround yourself with the things you love, so you can feel comfy, cozy, and completely at home in your space.

Join us virtually on Thursday, April 18 from 6 to 7 p.m. for a special Bletcher Hour featuring guest Tanya Lukin Linklater. 

Tanya Lukin Linklater is an artist, choreographer, and poet. Her work was featured in our 2023 exhibition My mind is with the weather, organized in collaboration with Oakville Galleries and the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver. For this month’s Bletcher Hour, we will read a selection from the recently published exhibition catalog of the same name. The selection includes texts from Tanya herself, essays from Frances Loeffler, Beth Paiatote, and Eugenie Joo, and a conversation between Tanya and poet Layli Long Soldier. 

Our discussion will take place online via Zoom. This program is free to attend. Please contact Heather Kehoe, Program & Event Coordinator, to register. Readings are sent as PDFs in advance of the event. 

Join us for a special SAAG Cinema screening of the 2022 American comedy-drama Showing Up.

Starring five-time Academy Award nominee Michelle Williams and co-written and directed by Kelly Reichardt, Showing Up follows a sculptor managing the competing attentions of her art, job, family, and friendships. The film recently received the Robert Altman Award at the 39th Independent Spirit Awards.

This event is free for Gallery Members. For non-members, regular admission applies. Refreshments will be available. 

The Gallery invites you to join us for the second of our multi-session speaker series Navigating Two Systems with John Chief Calf. In this second session, John will share some of the conflicts he has faced when navigating the two cultures and how these challenges come to a head when the cultures collide and clash. He will consider traditional and individual ways of interpreting conflict, and how their methods of mediation have developed and can be utilized. This session will consider not only how conflict arises and is dealt with, but also the resilience created by facing conflicts, and how such moments impact and inspire continued development. This event is free to attend. Light refreshments will be provided.

John Chief Calf was born and raised on the Blood Reserve and was a Child and Youth Care worker from 1985-1997. He received his BA/BEd from the University of Lethbridge in 2005. Chief Calf has taught for the Calgary Board of Education, Siksika Board of Education, Red Crow Community College as well as the Lethbridge Catholic Division, and is currently with the Lethbridge School Division as a humanities teacher. He is a self-taught artist and has sold artworks locally, corporately, and internationally.Did you know the Southern Alberta Art Gallery offers free admission on the first Friday of every month? Join us and explore our current exhibitions featuring artists Bridget Moser, Caroline Monnet, Christine Howard Sandoval, and Erdem Taşdelen, and Sikapikakii Low Horn and check out the Shop at SAAG’s feature artist Mad Fish Glass.

Looking for a fun and family-friendly activity on a Saturday afternoon? Visit the Gallery for Crafternoon, a self-directed art activity in our Creativity Centre. This month we will be making mini zines! Zines are small non-commercial non-professional publications. Similar to magazines and comics they use images and writing to tell stories and share ideas and messages. Because they can be made independently they’re often used to share unheard stories and voices with communities. Join us for this drop-in program where we will walk you through basic construction and share drawing and design tips so that you can make your own zines about all your interests and passions! This program is free with admission. All supplies are provided.

The Southern Alberta Art Gallery Maansiksikaitsitapiitsinikssin will be closed on Friday, March 29th for Good Friday.

Join Associate Curator Adam Whitford for a tour of the Gallery’s current exhibitions, Structural Integrity curated by Noa Bronstein featuring artists Caroline Bonnet, Christine Howard Sandoval, and Erdem Taşdelen, A Malevolently Bad Map by Bridget Moser, and IMIITAIKS’IISTSIK’OONI by Sikapinakii Low Horn. This tour is free for Gallery Members. For non-members, regular admission applies.

Join curator and academic Erin Sutherland and artist/architect Tiffany Shaw as they discuss decolonial strategies in art, architecture, and curation.

This program is free to attend and will take place online via Zoom. Registration is required. To register for this event, please contact Heather Kehoe, Program & Event Coordinator hkehoe@saag.ca.

Erin Sutherland is an independent curator and Associate Professor in the Department of Art & Art History at the University of Calgary. Originally from northern Alberta, Treaty 8 territory, Erin received a PhD Cultural Studies and MA Cultural Studies from Queen's University. She is also a founding member of Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective in Edmonton. She has curated a number of performance series and gallery shows including Talkin’ Back to Johnny Mac (2015), which engaged with the 200th birthday celebrations of Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. MacDonald. Other curatorial projects include Let’s Talk about Sex, bb (2018) co-curated with Carina Magazenni and Buffalo Boy: Hubris (2020).

Tiffany Shaw is a Métis architect, artist and curator based in Alberta. She holds a BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) University, a Masters in Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and is currently working at Reimagine Architects and recently started an Indigenous owned consulting company, named Reimagine Gathering. Shaw has exhibited widely including the Architecture Venice Biennale, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Pier 21, Agnes Etherington Art Centre and the Chicago Architecture Biennial. She has been the recipient of multiple public art commissions such as Edmonton's Indigenous Art Park and Winnipeg’s Markham Bus Station. Among her public art projects Tiffany has produced several notable transitory art works and is a core member of Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective.

Oscillating between digital and analogue methodologies Shaw’s work gathers notions of craft, memory and atmosphere. Her practice is often guided by communal interventions as a way to engage a lifted understanding of place. While born in Calgary and raised in Edmonton, Shaw’s Métis lineage derives from Fort McMurray via Fort McKay and the Red River.

Join us on March 22 from 6 - 7 PM for a special performance of “My Testimonial,” a play written and created by Greg MacArthur. This event is free for Gallery Members. For non-members, regular admission applies.

“My name is Greg MacArthur. I’ve been teaching performance, writing and theatre creation in the Drama Department at a small liberal arts university in Lethbridge, Alberta. My creative research lies in the study of authenticity, the nature of the self, the quality of reality. I’m going to tell you about something that happened to me recently. This is a re-enactment. Or an enactment, maybe? Or maybe a pre-enactment: something that hasn’t happened yet but is about to happen. This is Lethbridge, Alberta. This is the Southern Alberta Art Gallery. This is now.”

“My Testimonial” was written and conceived by Greg MacArthur. It was developed with support from Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and The University of Lethbridge. It was originally developed with Justin Blum, Kim Collier, Greg MacArthur, Jake Rose and Madeline Hunter Smith. It will be performed by Greg MacArthur and Stephanie Wickham. Creative and dramaturgical support provided by Justin Blum.

Greg MacArthur is a playwright, dramaturg, theatre creator, and educator. For over thirty years he has been involved in the creation and development of over twenty new works for the stage. His plays have been produced extensively across Canada, as well as in South Africa, Germany, the UK, Mexico, Romania, Hungary, and the United States. He studied performance at Toronto Metropolitan University and holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies at The University of Lethbridge. He has taught at the University of Alberta, Concordia University (Montreal), the National Theatre School, and the University of Lethbridge, where he is currently an Instructor in the Department of Drama.

Please note that this performance includes strong language and dialogue about drug and alcohol use, child abuse, violence, murder, and sexual subject matter.

In this artist talk, Sikapinakii Low Horn speaks about their current exhibitions at Casa (Kah’kano’kitopi Saatstakssin, on view until March 23) and at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (IMIITAIKS’IISTSIK’OONI, on view until April 20), as well as their research on Blackfoot cowboys.

Blackfoot artist, Sikapinakii Low Horn, is a member of the Siksika First Nation, which is part of the Blackfoot Confederacy in southern Alberta. They graduated with their Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2019 and is currently studying for their Master of Fine Arts. Low Horn is researching the topics of Blackfoot Cowboys in Alberta but their overall practice as a mixed media artist, is to tell the stories of their people. Educating others about the Blackfoot people in hopes of creating a comfortable space for all.

Image: The Dog Days, digital illustration, 2023. Courtesy of the artist. 

Free admission, all are welcome to attend.

Join us Thursday, March 14 from 6 to 7 p.m. for Bletcher Hour, the Gallery’s monthly critical reading group.

Readings explore key themes of the exhibitions and current events, with the intent to deepen our understanding of the artworks and their context within our community. This month we will be reading the essay “Welcome to Winnipeg: Making Settler Colonial Urban Space in ‘Canada’s Most Racist City’” by Heather Dorries. Heather Dorries is of Anishinaabe and settler ancestry and a member of Sagkeeng First Nation in Treaty 1. She is an Assistant Professor jointly appointed to the Department of Geography and Planning and Centre for Indigenous Studies at the University of Toronto. In the essay, Dorries analyzes the controversial 2015 McLean’s Article “Welcome to Winnipeg: Where Canada’s Racism Problem Is at Its Worst.” The article analyzes the article itself and the reaction to it, exploring the limitations of damage-focused reporting of racism. This essay is featured in the book Settler City Limits: Indigenous Resurgence and Colonial Violence in the Urban Prairie West. This book was recommended by curator Noa Bronstein, who curated our current exhibition Structural Integrity. This program is free to attend.

Please contact Heather Kehoe, Program & Event Coordinator, to register. Readings are sent as PDFs in advance of the event. If you cannot make it in person, online attendance options are available. Please note that this month's essay discusses injustices done to Indigenous peoples in Canada, including racism, enforced social and economic inequality and the ongoing human rights crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women - specifically the death of Tina Lafontaine. If you would like to discuss any content in advance of the program please contact Heather Kehoe.

Have you ever wanted to make your own book? Join us for this hands-on workshop to have the chance to make your own book. Participants will learn how to use the equipment in our Tiny Press Studio, and will make their own handmade book. 

Participants will have the chance to make a blank notebook or bind their own printed materials. If you want to bind your own writing or art, please bring two printed copies to the workshop. 

This workshop is $15 for general attendees and $10.00 for SAAG members. Please register in advance. Tickets can be purchased through Eventbrite or through the front desk at the Shop at SAAG. This workshop is open to ages 16+. The majority of the bookbinding process requires standing. Accommodations can be made. If you have any questions about the printing process, how to print your materials, or more please contact Heather Kehoe, Program & Event Coordinator.

Tiny Press at SAAG is a handmade bookmaking studio at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery Maansiksikaitsitapiitsinikssin, in Lethbridge, Alberta. Tiny Press prints, binds, and distributes books by hand, creating original work with writers and artists of the region, about topics that are important to us. Tiny Press is a community resource, and social gathering place for those interested in learning about publication, and connecting with others through a DIY mentality. 

The Gallery is excited to host the first of our multi-session speaker series Navigating Two Systems with John Chief Calf. In this first talk, John will discuss his perspectives on education and share the inspiration for this program series. In our first session, John will speak about challenges and complexities of living in two cultures. He will speak about navigating Indigenous and European environments and how they continue to be a constant challenge today. This event is free to attend. Light refreshments will be provided.

John Chief Calf was born and raised on the Blood Reserve and was a Child and Youth Care worker from 1985-1997. He received his BA/BEd from the University of Lethbridge in 2005. Chief Calf has taught for the Calgary Board of Education, Siksika Board of Education, Red Crow Community College as well as the Lethbridge Catholic Division, and is currently with the Lethbridge School Division as a humanities teacher. He is a self-taught artist and has sold artworks locally, corporately, and internationally.

Did you know the Southern Alberta Art Gallery offers free admission on the first Friday of every month? Join us and explore our current exhibitions featuring artists Bridget Moser, Caroline Monnet, Christine Howard Sandoval, and Erdem Taşdelen, and Sikapinakii Low Horn and check out the Shop at SAAG’s feature artist Mad Fish Glass.

Looking for a fun and family-friendly activity on a Saturday afternoon? Visit the Gallery for Crafternoon, a self-directed art activity in our Creativity Centre.  This month we will be taking experimental self-portraits. Inspired by Bridget Moser’s work and her exhibition A Malevolently Bad Map, we will make props and costumes that help tell stories through photographs. This program is free with admission. All supplies are provided. 

SAAG ARTS WRITING PRIZE 2024

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS CLOSES MARCH 30

The Southern Alberta Art Gallery Maansiksikaitsitapiitsinikssin is excited to announce the 13th annual SAAG Arts Writing Prize. This prize aims to recognize and support emerging writers whose writing relates to the field of contemporary art. Art writing is essential to supporting a healthy art ecosystem, providing access points for contemporary art practice, engaging different voices in the field, and encouraging and developing discourse in the arts. 

Writers can be considered for one or both of this year’s categories: Arts Writing and the Aruna D’Souza Award for BIPOC Writers. The requirements and prizes for each category are listed below. All entries are eligible to be published in the 2024 SAAG Arts Writing Prize Reader, made in-house at the Gallery’s Tiny Press. All submitters will be provided with a complimentary copy of the reader. 

This prize focuses on submissions of writing about contemporary art. This includes but is not limited to: exhibition reviews, critical essays, ekphrasis, etc. We will also consider experimental and innovative approaches to writing about contemporary art, including poetry, prose, creative fiction, etc. 

CATEGORIES & PRIZES

ARTS WRITING 

• Winner: $1000.00CAD cash prize, opportunity for a paid public program ($500.00CAD) with the Gallery, opportunity for an arts writing mentorship (Please see the FAQ for more details). 

• Runner-up: $250.00CAD cash prize. 

ARUNA D’SOUZA (BIPOC)

• Winner: $1000.00CAD cash prize, opportunity for a paid public program ($500.00CAD) with the Gallery, opportunity for an arts writing mentorship. 

• Runner-up: $250.00CAD cash prize.

ELIGIBILITY 

Writers must be at least 18 years of age at the time of entry. The competition is open to anyone residing in Canada, regardless of citizenship status, and to Canadians living abroad. 

For the purposes of the award, an emerging writer is defined as anyone who has not published more than one piece of art writing in a recognized print or online publication, exclusive of student-run journals and magazines, as well as self-published works. Submitters may be asked to provide evidence of publication history upon request. 

Writers may submit one piece of writing for consideration. Submissions are limited to 1000 words. Participants may be considered for both awards depending on their eligibility. Submitters must identify which awards they would like to be considered for. All submissions must be original and previously unpublished, inclusive of online publications. 

The Gallery is committed to continually working towards more equitable systems and practices. We welcome applications from candidates who identify as Indigenous, Black, racialized, LGBTQ2S+, d/Deaf and disabled, and from historically disadvantaged backgrounds.

SUBMISSION PROCESS

Electronic submissions are preferred. To apply please complete the application form and send a formatted PDF file of your submission to hkehoe@saag.ca. This PDF will be included as-is without any formatting changes or copyedits in the 2024 reader. 

Writers retain all copyrights to their submitted work. The two winners and two runners-up of the awards will have their work published in the SAAG Arts Writing Prize Reader 2024. All other submissions are eligible to be included in this publication, but writers who have not been selected for an award may choose to opt out.

JURY 

The SAAG Arts Writing Prize and Aruna D’Souza Award is assessed by a peer jury of arts writing professionals. The 2024 Arts Writing Prize jury will include editor, writer, and curator Aruna D’Souza, editor of Galleries West Shelley Boettcher, and writer Henry Heavy Shield. 

The Arts Writing Prize and Aruna D’Souza Award will be assessed based on the following criteria: 

• Artistic Impact (30%): The submitted piece of writing is effective and interesting. The submitted piece of writing demonstrates a new and exciting contribution to the field of art writing. 

• Connection to art (30%): The submitted piece of writing provides a unique and insightful perspective on contemporary art, art history, and/or artistic practice.

• Originality (20%): The submitted piece of writing shows imagination, creativity, and individuality. The submitted piece of writing demonstrates a unique perspective.

• Technical excellence (20%): The writer demonstrates a high level of skill in their craft, and rigor and intentionality in their chosen format. 

While we appreciate the time and effort taken to write and submit work to the prize, we are not able to provide individual feedback or comments on submissions. 

Please review the full Call for Submissions and FAQ prior to submitting. If you have any additional questions or accommodation requests, please contact Heather Kehoe, Program & Event Coordinator. 

Join us virtually on Thursday, February 15 from 6 to 7 p.m. for our first Bletcher Hour of 2024, featuring guest Erdem Taşdelen. 

Erdem Taşdelen’s art is featured in the Lower Gallery exhibition Structural Integrity, on at the Gallery until April 20. He has selected excerpts from Kate Brigg’s This Little Life for this month’s reading and will co-lead this month’s discussion. 

Kate Briggs is a translator and professor at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam. In This Little Life, Briggs presents a genre-bending exploration of the practice of literary translation. Recounting personal experience and historical practice, she presents translation as a complex and intensely relational activity. Accompanying this reading is an excerpt of Taşdelen’s exhibition booklet for A Minaret for the General's Wife, bridging between the themes of Brigg’s studies and his artistic practice. 

Our discussion will take place online via Zoom. This program is free to attend. Please contact Heather Kehoe, Program & Event Coordinator, to register. Readings are sent as PDFs in advance of the event. 

Erdem Taşdelen is a Turkish-Canadian artist who currently lives and works in Tkaronto/Toronto, Canada. Through the use of diverse materials and media, he constructs semi-fictional narratives that incorporate unique historical figures, events and texts to implicate contemporary sociopolitical realities. Selected exhibitions include The Power Plant (Toronto); Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (2023); BüroSarıgedik, Istanbul; The Plumb, Toronto; Richmond Art Gallery; Art Gallery of Burlington (2022); Mercer Union, Toronto; Oakville Galleries (2021); Blackwood Gallery, Mississauga; AKA artist-run, Saskatoon (2020); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; The Bows, Calgary; Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen (2019); VOX, Montréal; Bonington Gallery, Nottingham (2018); Pera Museum, Istanbul; Framer Framed, Amsterdam; Or Gallery, Vancouver (2017); Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg (2016); Sabancı Museum, Istanbul (2015). Taşdelen’s work has been reviewed in publications including Artforum, Flash Art, ArtAsiaPacific, Canadian Art and C Magazine. He has been an artist-in- residence at the Delfina Foundation, London; Rupert, Vilnius; and KulturKontakt Austria, Vienna. In 2019, he was long-listed for the Sobey Art Award.

Art NOW presents: Erdem Taşdelen
Noon | February 9, 2024
University Recital Hall, University of Lethbridge

Erdem Taşdelen will speak about the making of A Minaret for the General's Wife, his installation featured in the exhibition Structural Integrity at Southern Alberta Art Gallery, on view until April 20. He joins us virtually in the recital hall for this presentation.

Erdem Taşdelen is a Turkish-Canadian artist who currently lives and works in Tkaronto/Toronto, Canada. Through the use of diverse materials and media, he constructs semi-fictional narratives that incorporate unique historical figures, events and texts to implicate contemporary sociopolitical realities.

Selected exhibitions include The Power Plant (Toronto); Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (2023); BüroSarıgedik, Istanbul; The Plumb, Toronto; Richmond Art Gallery; Art Gallery of Burlington (2022); Mercer Union, Toronto; Oakville Galleries (2021); Blackwood Gallery, Mississauga; AKA artist-run, Saskatoon (2020); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; The Bows, Calgary; Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen (2019); VOX, Montréal; Bonington Gallery, Nottingham (2018); Pera Museum, Istanbul; Framer Framed, Amsterdam; Or Gallery, Vancouver (2017); Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg (2016); Sabancı Museum, Istanbul (2015).

Taşdelen’s work has been reviewed in publications including Artforum, Flash Art, ArtAsiaPacific, Canadian Art and C Magazine. He has been an artist-in- residence at the Delfina Foundation, London; Rupert, Vilnius; and KulturKontakt Austria, Vienna. In 2019, he was long-listed for the Sobey Art Award.

Image: Erdem Taşdelen, A Minaret for the General's Wife. Installation view at Mercer Union, Toronto, 2021. Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid.

Thank you to the Southern Alberta Art Gallery for their collaboration on this presentation.

Free admission, all are welcome to attend.

We’re excited to be part of Downtown BRZ’s Hot Beverage Week! Join us for a day of art activities and cozy drinks! We’ll have hot chocolate and apple cider available. All supplies are provided and your first drink is free! 

Did you know the Southern Alberta Art Gallery offers free admission on the first Friday of every month? Join us and explore our current exhibitions featuring artists Bridget Moser, Caroline Monnet, Christine Howard Sandoval, and Erdem Taşdelen, and Sikapinakii Low Horn and check out the Shop at SAAG’s feature artist Mad Fish Glass. 

Join the gallery for Bridget Moser’s performance, THE WORM THAT DESTROYS YOU at 1:30 PM on January 27, 2024 to accompany the opening of her exhibition A Malevolently Bad Map. Guests are encouraged to arrive 15 minutes early. The performance will last approximately 30 minutes. We encourage you to stay after the performance for our Articulations talk and tour with curator Noa Bronstein and exhibiting artist Sikapinakii Low Horn. 

Bridget Moser is a performance and video artist whose work combines strategies associated with prop comedy, experimental theatre, performance art, absurd literature, existential anxiety, and intuitive dance. She has presented work at venues including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Remai Modern, Saskatoon; le Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; the Art Museum at the University of Toronto; Vancouver Art Gallery; Western Front, Vancouver; MSVU Art Gallery, Halifax; Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha; John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan; SPACES Cleveland; and Xing Raum, Bologna. Her work has been reviewed and featured in Artforum, Frieze, Canadian Art, C Magazine, Art in America, and Artribune Italy, and she has been shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award.

Looking for a fun and family-friendly activity on a Saturday afternoon? Visit the Gallery for Crafternoon, a self-directed art activity in our Creativity Centre. This month we will be making thrifty creatures! Join us as we make soft and squishy friends out of second-hand clothing. This program is free with admission. All supplies are provided.

Join us Thursday, December 14 from 6 to 7 p.m. for Bletcher Hour, the Gallery’s monthly critical reading group. Readings explore key themes of the exhibitions and current events, with the intent to deepen our understanding of the artworks and their context within our community. 

This month we will be reading selections from Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky with Exit Wounds. Ocean Vuong is a Vietnamese American poet, essayist, and novelist. In his debut poetry collection, he unflinchingly faces the legacies of violence and cultural displacement while assuming a position of wonder in the face of romance, family, memory, grief, war, and melancholia.

This program is free to attend. Please contact Heather Kehoe, Program & Event Coordinator, to register. Readings are sent as PDFs in advance of the event. If you cannot make it in person, online attendance options are available.

We’re excited to partner with the Trap\door Artist Run Centre to feature their exhibition "Carrying Baggage”,  a unique travelling exhibition being shared in a series of formal, semi-formal and guerilla venues around Lethbridge throughout the fall and early winter of 2023. The work will be on display at the SAAG on Friday December 1 and  Saturday December 2. 

"Carrying Baggage” asked artists to create work that could fit into small to mid-sized hardside suitcases, new or old.  The only condition being that the luggage itself is an integral component to the work.  The thematic considerations were open, and the various artists have reflected on motifs including movement, travel, history, the baggage they carry, and the public vs private. The show is being presented at various cultural institutions, shopping centres, live music venues, and pop-up locations.  “Carrying Baggage” demonstrates how artists can turn a suitcase into a piece of art, and Trap\door Artist Run Centre is excited to carry them into a wide array of public locations. This exhibition features the work of the following artists; Seema Karchoo, Heather Kehoe, Harley Morman, Kalina Nedelcheva, Arianna Richardson and Noble Seggie. 

As an artist-run centre without a fixed and permanent venue, Trap\door is interested in situating work in spaces where artists and the public can intersect.  Historically, they have done this with pop-up galleries, ephemeral public artworks, and relational projects.  A registered non-profit operating out of Lethbridge, Trap\door has acted as a siteless & nomadic artist-run centre since 2004.  Oscillating between periods of activity and dormancy, "Carrying Baggage" is their first post-Covid initiative.

We’re excited to partner with the Trap\door Artist Run Centre to feature their exhibition "Carrying Baggage”,  a unique travelling exhibition being shared in a series of formal, semi-formal and guerilla venues around Lethbridge throughout the fall and early winter of 2023. The work will be on display at the SAAG on Friday December 1 and  Saturday December 2. 

"Carrying Baggage” asked artists to create work that could fit into small to mid-sized hardside suitcases, new or old.  The only condition being that the luggage itself is an integral component to the work.  The thematic considerations were open, and the various artists have reflected on motifs including movement, travel, history, the baggage they carry, and the public vs private. The show is being presented at various cultural institutions, shopping centres, live music venues, and pop-up locations.  “Carrying Baggage” demonstrates how artists can turn a suitcase into a piece of art, and Trap\door Artist Run Centre is excited to carry them into a wide array of public locations. This exhibition features the work of the following artists; Seema Karchoo, Heather Kehoe, Harley Morman, Kalina Nedelcheva, Arianna Richardson and Noble Seggie. 

As an artist-run centre without a fixed and permanent venue, Trap\door is interested in situating work in spaces where artists and the public can intersect.  Historically, they have done this with pop-up galleries, ephemeral public artworks, and relational projects.  A registered non-profit operating out of Lethbridge, Trap\door has acted as a siteless & nomadic artist-run centre since 2004.  Oscillating between periods of activity and dormancy, "Carrying Baggage" is their first post-Covid initiative.

Did you know the Southern Alberta Art Gallery offers free admission on the first Friday of every month? Join us and explore our current exhibitions featuring artists Gabi Dao, Elisa Harkins, and Megan Feniak and check out the Shop at SAAG’s feature artist Indig Busy-ness. 

Join Interim Curator Adam Whitford for a tour of the Gallery’s current exhibitions, What breaks on the horizon? by Gabi Dao, Teach Me a Song by Elisa Harkins, and In honoured dust by Megan Feniak.  Learn more about the exhibitions, the artists, and the Gallery.

This tour is free for Gallery Members. For non-members, regular admission applies.

Looking for a fun and family-friendly activity on a Saturday afternoon? Visit the Gallery for Crafternoon, a self-directed art activity in our Creativity Centre. This program is free with admission. All supplies are provided.