Rest in power Ahmaud Marquez Arbery, George Floyd, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, David McAtee, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and the many others who have lost their lives to police brutality and white supremacy.
Black lives matter. The tragic events of June 2020 were only the most recent in the ongoing attack on Black lives. It is our collective responsibility to keep our communities safe, and to protect those who are most vulnerable. It is crucial that we recognize that the violent and oppressive systems of policing are not isolated to our neighbours down south, and that Canada’s colonial history and present state are inextricable from continued structural violence towards marginalized folk.
The New Gallery understands that we must leverage our institutional privilege, capacity, and platforms to advocate, provide support, and encourage direct action. In June, The New Gallery muted our own content on social media to share local BLM events, initiatives, and resources in support of Black Canadians and anti-racism efforts. We also joined Untitled Art Society in an #ActionRecipe campaign (concept by Jamison Clark) to write our local politicians. The New Gallery has committed an additional donation of $10 to recognize each phone call and letter-writing action, to a total contribution of $1780. This amount, which includes contributions from The New Gallery’’s Board and staff, will be donated to the Calgary Black Empowerment Fund. In addition to this donation, The New Gallery has reallocated $2000 of our resources to support initial conversations and consultation with members of the Black artist community.
These ongoing conversations have led The New Gallery to strike an Equity Committee to better support our commitment to anti-racism accountability and equity now and into the future. Part of this work will include continual anti-oppression and anti-racism training for staff and Board members. It will also include a review of our current operations to identify where we have barriers within our organization.
The next year will be focused on these initial steps and ensuring that anti-racism, accessibility, and equity-building strategies are included within all of our future work. As The New Gallery begins sharing our programming on these platforms again, we will continue to advocate for our communities and share anti-racism, anti-oppression, and allyship resources through our social media. Please DM our social media accounts or email us at info@thenewgallery.org if you have an event or information you would like our organization to share. Thank you for your ongoing support as we continue our work towards being a more connected, responsible, and equitable organization.
Action Recipe
BLM Calgary Resource List via Esker Foundation
BLM Canada Resource List
BLM Resource List