Every gallery needs walls is the motivation behind Gallery 101 as it seeks outside sources of funding while contemplating having to relocate for the sixth time.
Gallery 101, an artist-run exhibition space located at 301½ Bank St., had entered the Aviva Community Fund Competition in hopes of winning grant money to put towards a permanent, stable location in Centretown.
“The gallery has to move every five years because we’re in a rented or leased space and the rents keep rising up. The last location we were in, the gallery was forced to move because it was sold for condo developments,” says Leanne L’Hirondelle, director of Gallery 101.
“I heard about this competition in an email and thought it would be beneficial for us just to enter.”
The gallery survives each year based on funding they receive from the three levels of government, as well as from donations, says L’Hirondelle. “Due to the recession, funding has basically frozen.”
Aviva Canada Inc. is an insurance group that created the Aviva Community Fund Competition in 2009 as a way for the company to give back to communities across Canada and support initiatives that will make positive changes in society.
The competition has a grand prize of $1 million to be distributed among the finalists, who are picked based on online support from members of the community.
“Insurance brokerages are, especially when you get into the bigger cities, very community-based. This (competition) is a natural extension of what we do,” says Glenn Cooper, an Aviva spokesman.
“This is a way that we can positively interact with our customers and with Canadians, in general.”
Gallery 101 was in the largest category, meaning the Gallery 101 board of directors was asking for between $100,000 and $150,000 to fund their idea.
Voting for the third round of the competition ended at noon on Nov. 30 and Gallery 101 did not receive enough votes to make it as a semi-finalist.
“I wasn’t really expecting us to make it as a finalist, but it’s really more about the idea of bringing attention to the fact that the gallery’s had this ongoing issue,” says L’Hirondelle.
“The space it currently exists in is challenging for a number reasons,” says Glenn Crawford, who works part-time as an event co-ordinator at Gallery 101.
“It restricts the number of exhibitions the Gallery can have at one time, because the space is fairly small," Crawford says.
"The other big challenge is we’re off street level. We’re on the second level of a building, so we don’t get the same walk-through traffic or recognition that we normally would if we were on ground level.”
According to Gallery 101’s online submission for the Aviva competition, it has only raised $30,000 to put as a down payment towards the purchase of a new location.
“Gallery 101 has had a very long history in Centretown and we feel that it’s very important for each neighbourhood to have their own artistic-type spaces,” says Crawford.
“I think if Gallery 101 is not able to find a space that’s large enough to remain in Centretown, it would be a huge loss to the neighbourhood.”
Adds L’Hirondelle: “We don’t have a future space for the gallery picked out, but that’s something we’ve been working on. We’ve been lucky enough to stay in the Centretown area and it’s important to us to stay somewhere central, but if we can’t find a space here, we’re open to moving to another neighbourhood.”
Despite the difficulty in receiving outside funding, Gallery 101 is continuing with its fundraising efforts, starting with the 101 Frames event.
101 Frames is the gallery’s annual fundraiser, where artists interested in showcasing their work and supporting the gallery, are given a blank frame to fill. The frames were sold in a silent auction on Dec. 3.
Centretowners can still vote for other competitors in the Aviva Community Fund Competition which is running until Dec. 16 online.