Arts facilities adapting to life in a pandemic
By Al Beeber on April 23, 2021.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com COVID-19 has impacted virtually every element of everyday life, including the ability to engage with the visual arts.With art being a personal sensory experience that involves multiple elements including texture, colour, light and even sound, the lockdowns imposed due to COVID have drastically affected the ability to participate in and enjoy it.
But local galleries and the Galt Museum and Archives are managing to survive during this difficult time by adapting to an online presence.
The Galt, along with Casa and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, have all moved full-steam into the online world where many of their programs have been operating since since COVID forced the first Alberta-wide lockdown in 2020.
And while they have adapted, managers of all three are looking forward to the day when visitors can return to those facilities to spend time among exhibits, or in the case of the Galt, doing their own personal research in the archives.
Darcy Logan, curator and gallery services manager at Casa downtown, says that facility is operating with a skeletal staff and all programming has been put on hold until the lockdown is lifted.
“The goalposts have been set back so many times,” said Logan this week. Casa was open last summer and fall but was forced to close its doors again in December.
“I’ve had to defer three times the exhibition queue,” said Logan who is frustrated people can hit the mall and big box stores but aren’t allowed to practise or engage with the arts in a controlled environment.
“We’re very safe, not like a mall. We have proper signage to guide people through to avoid bottlenecks,” he said.
This summer, with Casa’s studios and galleries off-limits, Logan is “going to pivot our programming to the plaza. We’ll do exterior programming instead.”
Casa had a quarantine exit strategy in place last June but “the carpet keeps being pulled out from under us,” said Logan, who has been with Casa since the facility was known as the Bowman Arts Centre and operated across from the public library.
Logan says the government has no consistency in its lockdown strategy and doesn’t know why galleries are still being locked down.
“When you see a busy mall or Costco, it’s a confusing message from the province.”
Courtney Faulkner, public engagements and event co-ordinator at SAAG, has adapted to COVID by offering many programs online, using social media such as Instagram and Facebook to help the gallery connect with the public.
“We’ve mostly transitioned programming online. We’re adjusting but we’re still offering similar programs,” said Faulkner, who is in her third year at the gallery on 3 Avenue South adjacent to Galt Gardens.
One of SAAG’s most popular online attractions is its long-running SAAG Cinema which once was staged in city movie theatres. Faulkner took the initiative to get filmmakers to join SAAG audiences for virtual screenings and do discussions with them. And she’d like to get the program back into theatres when the lockdown ends.
While physical gallery space at SAAG has been closed since December, Faulkner and SAAG staff have managed to engage the public in various forms of programming including an online bookbinding class.
When the gallery was open last summer, SAAG ran its popular children’s programming in smaller groups with no problems but Faulkner is unsure if that will be allowed this year, which could cost the gallery a chance to impact children’s understanding of, and interest, in art.
When the gallery’s latest exhibit was forced to close in December after two days, SAAG did an online opening which featured a walkthrough on Instagram Live.
“The challenges of transitioning to online has made us do more engaging video content,” said Faulkner, adding the online events have attracted attention from arts fans in distant parts of Canada and the world.
Arts Alive & Well in The Schools, a long-running program, will again be staged online this year with an opening planned in early May, said Faulkner.
Despite the lockdown, Faulkner says SAAG has “had good public attendance and engagement. It’s challenging to do everything online.
“It’s been a big learning curve.”
For Andrew Chernevych, head archivist at the Galt, the lockdown has meant more work meeting the research needs of the community but various elements of the museum and archives have been affected differently.
“Before COVID, you could have a crowd with lots of people packed together but that’s a no-no now.”
Much of the Galt exhibits and programming have also gone online, said Chernevych. People can access them by checking out the Galt Museum’s website at http://www.galtmuseum.com.
Among the most popular programs recently has been a Blackfoot language program, said Chernevych.
“Out of necessity, it was offered as an online program and it’s been a great success. Numbers were in the hundreds; that’s unheard of. It came as a surprise to organizers and opened new horizons for the Galt.”
Archival work for Galt staff means they have to do the work for the public who want access to photos and other documents. They scan materials and send them by email or Dropbox.
“So it’s business as usual” without visits from the public, he said.
“This works for some people because they don’t have to make an in-person visit but it makes it more difficult for us. We have to be more involved and it’s time-consuming. But we’re glad we can still provide a service.”
Chernevych has done outreach programs with college and university students through Zoom sessions. One recent Lethbridge College project by its fashion and design course had students contacting the Galt for photos of the interior of the old post office so they could create redesigned rooms for their class.
“It was very useful for them and very rewarding for me,” he said.
Despite the lockdown, public engagement with the Galt was down only 13 per cent in 2020 from 2019 even though physical traffic was down 80 per cent.
“It’s the best-case scenario,” said Chernevych. Follow @albeebHerald on Twitter 4
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