Western Canada's art magazine since 2002
24 March 2020 Vol 5 No 6 ISSN 2561-3316 © 2020
From the Editor
Portia Priegert
These are uncertain times. Like other people, we are worried about our health, that of friends and family, and, of course, the well-being of the larger community.
Here at Galleries West, pandemic preparations have been relatively straightforward. Publisher Tom Tait has long worked from his home in Calgary, while I work from my home in Victoria. We rely on a wonderful team of freelance writers, who also work from home, and we have a digital workflow system that continues to serve us well.
As a result, we’ve decided to keep publishing Galleries West. Our main challenge moving forward is the dearth of our editorial mainstay – gallery shows that readers can get out to see. Instead, we'll write a variety of other stories. We're not sure exactly how this will play out, and the size of our biweekly issues may shrink somewhat.
This issue has our full complement of six stories, mostly pieces that were already in the pipeline when the wave of gallery closures started 10 days ago. You can read about Shuvinai Ashoona, Gavin Lynch, Anna Gustafson, Alysse Bowd and Walt Humphries. While most shows are no longer open, our stories stand up as interesting reads. We really hope you'll get a chance to see some of this work firsthand when life gets back to normal.
Moving forward, we have an opportunity to tell stories about this crisis and its impact on artists, galleries and the arts community. Our first such story, which you can read in this issue, looks at the unprecedented wave of temporary closures by galleries and other arts facilities across Western Canada, part of efforts to hold down the spread of the COVID-19 infection.
Galleries made tough, but responsible, decisions, and we applaud them. Our collective health as a society is paramount.
In many cases, the closures will have serious financial repercussions. Already, galleries are starting to reach out online, offering virtual tours, artist talks and even openings. We're watching these efforts and will write in our next issue about initial attempts to rally the arts community at a distance using technology. So, please, let us know about exhibitions, screenings or other projects that have moved online.
Galleries West is uniquely positioned as a conduit to relay important art news and other content that may fall by the wayside at mainstream media outlets. We particularly want to share stories about how artists – who are highly precarious workers – are faring during this crisis. If you have a story to share, do reach out to me at editor@gallerieswest.ca. And writers, please continue to pitch ideas for stories and other online content.
We have assigned some artist profiles for coming weeks. We've also assigned reviews of several books, including Ken Lum’s Everything Is Relevant: Writings on Art and Life, 1991-2018 and Hinterland Remixed: Media, Memory, and the Canadian 1970s by Andrew Burke.
If you need more, I encourage you to dip into our archives. Thousands of articles from the last 18 years are available at no charge in our searchable data base. Another option is to scroll down on our homepage to the Flashback feature, where our bots choose five stories at random from the archives. Every time you refresh the homepage, you get a new selection.
No one has any idea how long this strange new era of physical isolation will last. Weeks? Months? The earlier and more successfully we isolate, the more we will slow the spread of the virus, particularly amongst the most vulnerable, and the more time we will give our medical system to cope, save lives and find a vaccine.
The road ahead is tough, but if we act collectively in the best interests of all, we can get through this. While the current uncertainty can leave us in fear's grip, I am absolutely certain of at least one thing: Art will go on, come what may.
Take good care of yourselves,
CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE: Jessica Davey-Quantick, Agnieszka Matejko, Dorothy Woodend