
Dreaming Asleep, Dreaming Awake
August 22nd - October 11th, 2025
Dreaming Asleep, Dreaming Awake is a commemoration of 50 years of artist-run culture at The New Gallery (TNG). Originally founded as Clouds ‘N’ Water Gallery and Visual Production Society in 1975, the organization was conceived as a parallel space to the large institutions like museums that most emerging artists couldn’t access or exhibit in. It was a space for the experimental and the dreamy. Dreaming Asleep, Dreaming Awake is a collaborative exhibition featuring the work of Helen Arias, Jordan Baylon and Peter Moller reflecting on the histories of The New Gallery, and more broadly, the histories of the arts in Mohkínstsis. Through meetings, dinners, and cups of coffee, the artists have begun connecting the lineages between their practices, bridging the gap from The New Gallery’s founding to its present day.
Additionally, The New Gallery is launching a 50th Anniversary Publication of the same title, Dreaming Asleep, Dreaming Awake, that features writing by Jules de Guzman, Sikapinakii Lowhorn, Su Ying Strang, Winona Julian and Alexa Bunnell, and designed by Phoenix Ning. This publication celebrates The New Gallery's 50 years as an artist-run center, with texts that touch on archival memory, collaborative histories and institutional knowledge vs. lived experiences.
Additionally, The New Gallery is launching a 50th Anniversary Publication of the same title, Dreaming Asleep, Dreaming Awake, that features writing by Jules de Guzman, Sikapinakii Lowhorn, Su Ying Strang, Winona Julian and Alexa Bunnell, and designed by Phoenix Ning. This publication celebrates The New Gallery's 50 years as an artist-run center, with texts that touch on archival memory, collaborative histories and institutional knowledge vs. lived experiences.
A series of free public outreach events will accompany the exhibition and publication launch in the coming months.

Helen Arias is a Venezuelan artist and designer creating in Mohkinstsis/Calgary. Through collage, printmaking, performance and zinemaking, her practice engages themes of violence, transformation, and grrrlhood. She is actively involved in the local independent art and music scene, organizing exhibitions, workshops, and performances through her ongoing projects PERRA and Volatile Sex Pill. Grounded in the ethos of feminist punk and DIY, her work twines personal experience with collective resistance, inviting you to consider the politics of the body, identity, expression and community within subcultural spaces and beyond.


Peter Moller has run Egg Press Co., a Calgary-based graphic and sound design establishment, since 1976. He is the recipient of a number of Betty Mitchell and Elizabeth Sterling Haynes awards and nominations for his theatre sound designs. Recent designs: Indians & Cowboys, The Good The Bad & The Treaty (OYR & Making Treaty 7), The Gold Rush REDUX (OYR High Performance Rodeo); Modern Times REDUX (The GRAND); 1958, a sound design presented at Calgary’s Arts Commons. To see and hear Peter’s work, please visit eggpress.ca