grunt gallery Media Lab
Over the past 26 years, grunt gallery has been at the forefront of important developments in contemporary Vancouver and Canadian cultural production – most notably First Nations contemporary production and performance art, as well as community engaged and collaborative arts. grunt’s programming has always embodied diversity, attracting a myriad of voices that don’t fit easily into other contexts. This tradition has always grown out of the gallery’s kitchen space, representing the heart of the organization and a point of intersection for many of Vancouver’s artist communities. It has become a place where many points of view collide and the city’s cultural diversity is apparent.
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Building on this tradition, grunt gallery’s new Media Lab will be a space molded by the long tradition of a diverse and cross-disciplinary art for which grunt has become known. The Media Lab will be a media arts extension of the discussions and ideas that have grown from grunt’s physical kitchen over the past two decades. The Media Lab will be a testament to this important history; it is an idea whose time is come. It will allow us to open our extensive archives to the public, develop online audiences and increase capacity for educational programming as well as offering artists new opportunities to work in digital media.
About the Media Lab
The Media Lab will completely expand the scope of grunt, transforming the entire back area of the facility into a space for media-based installation, education, dialogue and performance. Virtually, the space will have the ability to stream and produce online performances and presentations with a built-in flexibility that will allow for the programming of artist’s talks, panel discussions, meetings, conferences and other events at different times. The facility will comfortably seat 20 to 25 people in various configurations. From a production standpoint, the Media Lab will house grunt’s archives, as well as acting as a production and dissemination facility (video, projection, sound, computational and other similar forms of practice). Technically the space will offer a state of the art facility incorporating high speed internet, a computer system specifically for the archives, and audio and video resources as well as an installed sound and projection system specific for the media lab.
grunt has always represented a myriad of disciplines and often contradictory points of view, defying attempts to dogmatize it and always presupposing shifting positions. The Media Lab continues this tradition, inviting artists of varied backgrounds to present and collaborate within the context of digital media, net.art, video and sound installation. The Media Lab will be a new interactive space that will allow artists a programmable context from which to create work.
It will allow audiences new levels of engagement within our programming that is accessible on site and through the web, augmenting both our physical and online presence and allowing these to merge into a unified and multifaceted whole. It will allow the gallery to pursue educational programming that has the ability to engage and enlighten as well as auxiliary programming for exhibitions that will take you further into the artist’s world.
The Archives
One of the main focuses of the Media Lab will be in the preservation and dissemination of grunt’s archives, amassed over the past 26 years of the gallery’s existence. grunt’s archives are a rich resource of images, video and texts documenting the history of exhibitions, performances and projects. In addition, over the last five years, grunt has produced a number of important new websites highlighting the unique production of important First nation creators (First Vision, Aboriginal Creators Project , Medicine Project Beat Nation ) as well as an extensive survey of Vancouver art production through the site Ruins in Process – Vancouver Art in the Sixties produced in cooperation with the Belkin Gallery UBC in 2009. These projects represent just the beginning of the direction the gallery will take as it begins to look into the archives not as simply databases, but as interactive, accessible and user-friendly interfaces. Different artists, performers, curators and writers will be invited to dissect the archives, creating new shows, performances, and installations through discussions between the original artists and emerging artists in the digital field.
Invest in tomorrow. Support the Media Lab today!
grunt gratefully accepts financial and in-kind donations of any size. As a registered charity, grunt will issue a charitable tax receipt for all donations.
to donate please click on the Donate Now button or contact Meagan Kus at 604-875-9516
grunt is also grateful for individual contributions from our supporters:
Robert McNealy, Ken Gerberick, Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Carole Itter, Kuh Del Rosario, Deanna Bayne, Dale Roberts, Ian Weniger, Fae Logie, Donna Hagerman & Dave Chisholm
Brewery Creek Project 1986
(with Western Front and Avenue for the Arts),
Trace Elements – current assemblage 1987
(with Pitt Gallery),
The Vancouver Performance Art Series 1990
(with Vancouver Fringe Festival),
Masque of the Red Death 1991
(with Public Dreams),
First Nations Performance Series 1992
(with Vancouver Fringe Festival),
Queer City 1993
(with Pitt Gallery, Video Inn and others),
Mount Pleasant Community Fence 1994,
HalfBred 1995
(with Pitt Gallery),
The Mattering Map 1996,
An Indian Act Shooting The Indian Act 1997
(with Locus+),
Positive+ 1997
(with Roundhouse Community Centre),
Live at the End of the Century 1999
(with 20 other galleries),
Indian Acts – Aboriginal Performance Art 2002
(with TRIBE),
LIVE Biennial (2001,03,05),
Nova Library 2006,
Live in Public – The art of engagement 2007,
HIVE 2 Performance Series 2008,
Nikamon Ohci Askiy (songs because of the land) 2009,
Ruins in Process Vancouver Art In the 60’s 2009
(with Belkin Gallery UBC).
grunt gallery would like to acknowledge the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage through the Canada Cultural Spaces Fund and the City of Vancouver.