For Immediate Release / June 30, 2021
Welcome Back
The Art Gallery of St. Albert, the Musée Heritage Museum and the Grain Elevator Park welcome back visitors
“We are certainly thrilled to have people be able to come in and see our exhibitions and be able to participate in programs in person again,” says Interim Director of the Art Gallery of St. Albert, Leah Louden. “We really tried to bring as much of the gallery online during closures as we could, but it’s never the same.”
This is a common refrain at this point—so many arts and cultural programs and experiences have put forward their best efforts in a digital space during the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is no denying that reality has its advantages over virtual reality. As such, both Louden and Shari Strachan, Director of the Musée Heritage Museum, are happy to be welcoming back patrons.
“It feels wonderful to be reopening,” shares Strachan. “Just seeing people and getting that face to face [contact]. Being back and getting to have a conversation with somebody—we’ve missed that. We’ve really missed you.”
Both institutions are cornerstones of the cultural community in St. Albert and both are starting back up with particularly poignant exhibits for St. Albertans to engage with.
First, and for a limited time, the Museum is sharing two exhibits from the Legacy of Hope Foundation—Generations Lost: Healing the Legacy of Residential Schools and Peter Henderson Bryce: A Man of Conscience. Both installations illuminate the dark history of residential schools in Canada.
“It’s very timely,” says Strachan. “[It’s] really important to educate ourselves about this. We had two residential schools in St. Albert. Now with the findings and the news, it’s such a relevant topic. And we find that most people—and that’s why it’s so important—need to educate themselves. People either don’t know or didn’t truly understand what the Truth and Reconciliation Committee was about.”
Strachan is quick to point out it’s not just the Museum that’s reopened—the St. Albert Grain Elevator Park is also available to the public anew. In addition to the grain elevators and train station, residents can explore the newly restored Cunningham House and Belcourt House that now sit across from the grain elevators on Riverlots 23 and 24, as well as the community garden that is also part of the growing heritage site. The mostly outdoor experience is a great option for those who want to ease into ‘back to normal’, in the wake of COVID-19.
Over at the Art Gallery, their latest exhibit is timely in a completely different way. Keith Harder’s Ill Winds fills the main exhibit space with depictions of extreme weather in the form of clouds rolling through on a grand scale, addressing themes of hardship and resilience.
“Keith Harder’s Ill Winds is really something you have to see in person,” says Louden. “We do some virtual formats to make it accessible to everyone, but at the same time, there’s something about these paintings you have to experience in person. They are huge—they're ten feet tall in the biggest case. So, you need to experience some of that scale for yourself.”
According to Louden, putting up this show—which explores the adversity of storms, but also their silver linings—feels very different now from when they first booked the show.
“When we were originally going to host this show in 2020, we’d been thinking about things like climate change, world strife and that sort of thing,” explains Louden, “but now having experienced the pandemic and being able to finally host this show that we had to post-pone from 2020, it has a little bit of a different feel. Being able to re-open with this show, you see even more of that silver lining. Maybe the benefit to winds coming through and changing things in our lives.”
As arts experiences begin anew, change is certainly blowing through. However, for those that are still wary of in-person activities, both Louden and Strachan emphasize that COVID-safe practices will still be in full effect at both the gallery and museum; including having hand sanitizer available, encouraging physical distancing, increased cleaning for high-touch surfaces and welcoming the continued use of masks.
“I think a gallery is a perfect safe entry going back into a more normal world” says Louden. “It’s somewhere where you can keep your distance. It’s not a going to be a crowded space and you can calmly and safely look at art without having to touch a single thing. I hope for a lot of people our current exhibits will bring some sense of wonder and some sense of comfort to them, and hopefully provide them with some peace, after such a difficult period.”
For more information about programming for both the Art Gallery of St. Albert and the Musée Heritage Museum, as well as the Grain Elevator Park, please visit the Arts and Heritage website.
Keith Harder’s Ill Winds runs untill July 30, 2021
Banner photo credit: Lemermeyer Photography
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Last edited: July 6, 2021