A non-profit promising to create a visual arts centre of excellence in the Northwest Territories is in the process of launching.
The NWT Art Centre Initiative has received three years of operational funding, the group announced on Facebook, stating it is a project funded by national charity MakeWay.
Artists in the territory have long complained that no dedicated non-profit gallery and centre has been created for their work, though some commercial spaces and a smaller gallery at Yellowknife’s visitor centre do now exist.
The new initiative has begun hiring a project administrator and art centre development specialist.
The NWT Art Centre Initiative “is working to establish a centre for excellence in northern-Canadian Indigenous visual arts in Yellowknife,” the group wrote on hiring website Indeed.
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“We are dedicated to elevating awareness of and enhancing the prestige of NWT artwork. Our primary objective is to build a non-commercial art gallery and visual-arts-focused community centre in Yellowknife, NT – a space for individuals to view, appreciate and engage in the creation of art while inspiring and supporting young artists from across the North.”
So far, no timeline or further detail about the creation of the centre is available.
The project is being led by realtor and former Yellowknife deputy mayor Adrian Bell.
Reached by email on Monday, Bell said he expects to be able to reveal more in February once the initiative has a website prepared and is ready to “make a good first impression.”
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In recent years, the territory’s arts community has ever more visibly protested against what it says is a significant oversight in the shape of a non-existent gallery.
Though spaces exist like Yellowknife’s museum, which stages a handful of major art exhibitions each year, artists have said the current options aren’t enough.
“There are so many more artists and so much more work out there to show, so many more ideas,” said gallery advocate Sarah Swan in 2021 as she towed a trailer pointedly dubbed “Art Gallery of NWT” around Yellowknife.
The NWT government previously told Cabin Radio it “does not have a mandate to create physical infrastructure for the arts.”