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Tuesday 12pm - 5pm Wednesday 12pm - 5pm Thursday 12pm - 5pm Friday 12pm - 5pm Saturday 12pm - 5pm

grunt gallery

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grunt gallery

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grunt gallery is an artist-run-centre founded in 1984 with a mandate to support the emergence of innovative, collaborative, and provocative art.

grunt gallery was founded in 1984 in Vancouver, BC with the vision to become an internationally renowned artist-run centre and further the practice of contemporary art. Through the exploration of our diverse Canadian cultural identity, we are able to offer public programming in the form of exhibitions, performances, artist talks, publications, and other special projects in the community. Our mandate is to inspire public dialogue by creating an environment conducive to the emergence of innovative, collaborative, and provocative contemporary art.

10/08/2026

We are excited to announce the appointment of Rebecca Wang 王晨釔 as our Assistant Curator! Join us in congratulating Rebecca, we are thrilled to welcome her thoughtful insights as we collaborate on upcoming programming.

Rebecca Wang 王晨釔, is a curator, artist, and writer based between the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, also known as Vancouver, and her hometown of Hangzhou. Rebecca’s curatorial interests span mythology, folklore, traditional Chinese painting, and diasporic narratives. Her artistic practice navigates personal confusions arising from the everyday, often stemming from the absurdity ingrained in capitalist consumer culture. She has curated exhibitions at Richmond Art Gallery and Access Gallery, and presented a solo exhibition at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. She holds an MA in Critical and Curatorial Studies from the University of British Columbia, a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and a BBA from Simon Fraser University. She also works as Curatorial Assistant at Richmond Art Gallery.

Photo credit: Zhong Liu

09/22/2026

Call for Artists: Creators’ Favourite S***s, a Two-Spirit/Indigiq***r Art Market.
Saturday, December 12, 2026 from 1pm to 7pm.
Apply by October 31! No fee to apply or table, artists keep 100% of proceeds.

“Creators’ Favourite S***s” Two-Spirit/Indigiq***r Art Market is back! This popular market had its first run back in February in celebration of Valentine’s Day, and is returning to grunt gallery on Saturday, December 12th, 2026! grunt is seeking 2S and/or Q***r Indigenous artists from Turtle Island and Palestine to join our roster of tabling artists.

Taking over two rooms of the gallery, we will have space for 13-15 artists. Please consider how much table space you will realistically need, as most artists will be two to one table. If you need more space, please note it in your application, but the more people are okay with sharing space, the more artists we can include! Artists will be responsible for handling their own transactions; chairs and tables will be provided by grunt.

The market will run from 1pm to 7pm, with load-in starting at 12:30pm —if these times don’t work for you, please reach out to [email protected]. For information on accessing grunt’s space, please scroll to the bottom of our website at grunt.ca . Please email [email protected] with any specific concerns.

Apply through the Google form linked in our bio!

Image courtesy of Jacqueline Morrisseau.

09/20/2026

Submissions Now Open for our AEP’s 2027 Non-Verbal Co-Learning Engagement.
Deadline: Friday, January 8 (end of day), 2027.
Compensation: $2,000

The Non-Verbal Co-Learning Engagement is a 6-week program designed to explore non-verbal (not spoken) communication approaches in contemporary art spaces. This program supports artists whose practices prioritize gesture, text, sign language, or silence as creative tools. Participants work collaboratively with grunt gallery staff to identify access barriers and imagine more inclusive ways of working within contemporary art. 2 non-verbal artists will be selected to participate in the program that runs from February to mid-March 2027.

This program is limited to artists residing in the Greater Vancouver Regional District or Metro Vancouver. Priority is given to artists who self-identify as Deaf, deaf, Hard of Hearing, Non-Verbal, Neurodiverse, or as practitioners of non-verbal communication in their work. The program also supports Trans and Q***r artists who are exploring silence and adapting to a silent or non-verbal practice as they undergo voice changing transitions. Applications from Indigenous artists from Host Nations (Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh) will be prioritized.

Join us for an Information Session (online on Zoom): Wednesday, January 6 at 6pm.

Learn more or register for the information session through the links located in our bio!

09/14/2026

Resonant Bodies.
Naomi Watkins.
Curated by Daina Warren.

September 26 – November 21, 2026
Opening Saturday, September 26 from 5pm to 7pm.

Resonant Bodies explores the intersections of displacement, reconnection, and the inherent animacy of more-than-human beings. Naomi Watkins is from the Secwépemc nation, from BC’s southern interior. Their work challenges anthropocentric perspectives on belonging, aiming to spark critical dialogue regarding identity, revealing that our sense of place is a collaborative experience shaped by both human history and the living landscapes we inhabit.

To encounter the contemporary Indigenous experience through the lens of a two-spirit Secwépemc artist raised away from unceded homelands is to confront the geography of proximal displacement. In this exhibition, spatial dislocation is not merely charted along the asphalt highway connecting the urban sprawl of Vancouver to the inland rivers of Kamloops; it resides in the subtle, enduring friction between presence and absence, ancestral memory and diaspora.

Watkins reflects, “While working with these cedar beings, I became more and more attentive to the offcuts and natural forms that emerged from carving, noticing that they seemed to speak for themselves when I worked alongside them rather than carving something representational. This became part of a larger process of figuring myself out and returning to the stories and relationships that shaped me while growing up away from my nation. Through these gestures, I have found an intimate threshold that I want to linger within–a space where I can consider proximity, displacement and belonging while being generative and careful.

These works are an attempt to remain open to that learning and to the ancestral stories resting within cedar grain, moving through green-hued lakes and carried across each limb of sand. In this way, Resonant Bodies offers a continued gesture outward: a call to keep listening, keep learning and keep returning to the relationships that make this connection and care possible.”

Learn more through the link in bio!

Image descriptions and artist biography located in the comments.
Images courtesy of the artist. Slide 2 image of Naomi by Pip Mamo, 2025.

09/11/2026

Notice of Annual General Meeting (AGM).
Thursday, September 24, 2026, 6:30pm, Online via Zoom.

Please join us for a fast and fun Annual General Meeting of the Visible Art Society (dba grunt gallery) online via Zoom. We will be meeting for the following purposes:

1. Presentation of the 2025 - 2026 Audited Financial Statements.
2. Board of Directors’ Report.
3. Program Director Report.
4. Operations Director Report.
5. Election of the Society’s Officers.

As a member, you are invited to attend virtually and vote. If you are not a member, please sign up for our monthly newsletter by visiting the link in our bio! Sign up by 5pm on September 23, 2025, to qualify to vote at our upcoming AGM. There is no cost to membership.

Please use this Zoom link to join our virtual AGM:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85046906191?pwd=NlT5aYe9rmF0x3PIjmDB7jJrLwMITo.1

Please email [email protected] with any access needs or requests. We look forward to seeing you at the AGM!

Image credit: Detail shot of the Shell of Shells, Tactile panel from Project Fire Flower, Collin van Uchelen, October - December, 2021. Photo by Dennis Ha.

08/27/2026

The AXIS report: an independent report on Access x Art x AI

A research initiative presented by grunt gallery, facilitated and written by Kay Slater. The AXIS report aims to foster inclusive conversations about AI technologies by offering a portrait of how disabled and Deaf artists in British Columbia are navigating the complexities of AI today, amidst gaps in support services. Slater expands upon inspirations for the AXIS research project:

“Over the past year, I have been researching how disabled and Deaf artists in British Columbia are using AI technologies. Not only generative AI, but the much broader range of AI-powered tools that have quietly become part of everyday artistic and professional practice.

Public conversations about AI often become polarized, focusing on whether these technologies are “good” or “bad.” Those conversations are important, but they can also leave out the people who rely on imperfect technologies to bridge gaps left by inaccessible institutions, underfunded services, and supports that have never been fully available in the first place.

This report does not argue that AI is inevitable, ethical, or without harm. It acknowledges the very real concerns around copyright, privacy, environmental impact, labour, and the risk that AI could be used to justify cuts to human accessibility services. At the same time, it asks what happens when disabled and Deaf artists are absent from those discussions, and what we can learn by listening to how these tools are already being used in practice.
Rather than offering definitive answers, I hope this report contributes research that can support more thoughtful conversations, better policy, and more inclusive decision-making within the arts sector.

The report is available in English text, audio, and ASL. The English text and audio versions are released under a Creative Commons licence and are intended to be read, shared, cited, and built upon. I hope you’ll take a look, and I welcome continued conversation as our communities navigate these complex questions together.”

Read the report at https://axis.grunt.ca/
Questions or other inquiries? Email [email protected]

This project was made possible with support from Canada Council for the Arts.

08/21/2026

Eco-process Open House with Artist-in-residence Rea Saxena.
Thursday, August 27, 2pm to 7pm.
At the Blue Cabin, 1905 Ogden Avenue, Vancouver.

You’re invited to check out what Rea Saxena has been working on during their Eco-process Artist Residency at the Blue Cabin! Drop in anytime from 2pm to 7pm.

Rea’s media-based practice pairs hand-processed, disruptive analogue filmmaking techniques with rhythmic editing for projection and spatial media experiences. Over the course of this residency, Rea has been working with mentor Morgan Sears-Williams on eco-processing techniques such as lumen printing and phytogram, as well as experimenting with projection mapping and film installation.

The Blue Cabin is currently moored at Heritage Harbour, directly below the Vancouver Maritime Museum. There is a gangway to the dock, which can be steep depending on tides. To reach the Blue Cabin barge from the docks, a large step or small jump is required from the dock to the platform. There are handrails around the perimeter of the barge. The cabin studio space is accessed via seven 7" high stairs with a handrail, one 6" step and a 29″ doorway. The Blue Cabin is unfortunately currently not wheelchair accessible.

Slide 1 lumen print by Rea Saxena, scanned by Morgan-Sears Williams.
Slide 2 images by Sophia English.

08/12/2026

Blue Assemblage.
To celebrate grunt's archive and the many folks who contribute to its vitality, we are sharing research projects, activations, artist memories, and other perspectives from the community.

While completing a directed study project in the grunt archive for their graduate degree in archival studies, artist and curator dani neira discovered The Blue Cabin, Al Neil and Carole Itter’s off-grid home and workspace of many years that was reimagined as a floating artist residency in 2019 following its displacement from the Burrard Inlet shoreline. Like many before them, neira was enchanted by the Cabin and the many narratives intertwined within its unlikely story and has penned a poetic text that considers the plurality of human and non-human actors, elements of nature, and tides of history that have left their mark on the structure over the past 100 years.

Read the full feature by visiting the link in bio!

dani neira (they/them) is an artist-researcher working across book arts, publishing, sculpture, and curation. Weaving q***r theory, critical archival studies, and speculative fiction, their practice investigates the mutability of materiality and memory through an affective lens.

dani lives on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ nations, and is currently a Master of Archival Studies and Library & Information Studies student at the University of British Columbia. They are one-half of the Dirty Dishes Collective and serve on the Board of Directors for Access Gallery.

Image credit: Carole Itter and Al Neil, Floating assemblage, circa 2010. Photo: Carole Itter.

08/11/2026

Summer Closure
Monday, August 31 to Monday, September 7, 2026

Please note that we will be enjoying the sun and closed for our annual summer break starting Monday, August 31.

08/06/2026

We’re excited to share grunt’s new Strategic Plan, a roadmap that will help guide our work through 2030 and beyond. Grounded in our growth over the past decade and shaped by the communities we work alongside, the plan outlines how we’re working to strengthen grunt’s responsiveness, resilience, and long-term sustainability. The core of our Strategic Plan revolves around a commitment to remaining regionally rooted, community-responsive, and accountable to the artists, audiences, arts workers, and communities we serve. The plan is organized around five strategic priorities: Accessibility, Community Engagement, Revenue Development, Facilities Planning, and Human Resources.

Central to this plan are questions like: “What do artists need moving into the future?“, “What alternative business models might better support our goals and communities?” and “How can we reflect our values and aspirations more fully through human resources and capital expansion?”

We invite you to read the plan at grunt.ca/strategic-plan — both a full colour PDF and plain text version are available. Linked in bio!

Thanks for your continued support of grunt, it means the world to us!

Special thanks to Steve Chow (chowdesign.ca) for designing the PDF version of our Strategic Plan.

[Video description: Bold white text on a black background reads, “Our strategic plan, 2025 to 2030 is now available online!” The video shows an excerpt of the strategic plan in its pdf format and invites viewers to check out the plain text version through a qr code or by visiting grunt’s link in bio. Organizational priorities are listed in black text on background stripes of different colours. grunt’s logo appears at the end of the video.]

Address

350 East 2nd Avenue #116
Vancouver, BC
V5T4R8

Opening Hours

Tuesday	12pm - 5pm
Wednesday	12pm - 5pm
Thursday	12pm - 5pm
Friday	12pm - 5pm
Saturday	12pm - 5pm

Telephone

+16048759516

Website

http://grunt.ca/, https://linktr.ee/gruntgallery

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