Open Space Arts Society

Open Space is non-profit artist-run centre located in Victoria, British Columbia. For nearly four decades, Open Space has been the downtown core’s contemporary art centre, hosting visual artists, writers, performers, composers, musicians and media artists. As an exhibition and performance centre, Open Space reflects the wide diversity of contemporary art practices in Victoria, across Canada and beyond. Our commitment to contemporary artists is an inclusive situation, embracing work by artists of different disciplines, media, generations, cultures and communities. Open Space is the largest artist-run centre on Vancouver Island and in the Gulf Islands region. Open Space has a longstanding local, national and international presence as a contemporary arts centre applauded by visual and performing artists, critics and its audience. Open Space receives proposals from across Canada and the US, the UK and Europe. It is a place of reciprocating exchange: local artists, curators, performers and critics engage with national and international guests, and the latter encounter the considerable skill, knowledge and innovation resident in Victoria’s cultural community . . . and spread the word. Open Space’s mandate is to “…be a working laboratory for innovative art practices, opening new territories for contemporary art, artists and society in a global context.” Open Space accommodates artists’ ideas and strategies, offering visual art exhibitions, artist talks, screenings, workshops, interventions, site-related work, new music performances and initiatives outside conventional art domains.