Thieves stripped its air conditioners, and now the Art Gallery of Sudbury needs help to fix them

The Art Gallery of Sudbury is asking for the public's help to pay for repairs after thieves stole the copper piping from two of its air conditioners. 

Demetra Christakos, the gallery's director and curator, said a colleague noticed last Thursday morning the cover had been removed from one of the building's air conditioners. 

When they looked closer they saw the copper piping was gone, and another unit was also stripped for other metals.

"This has left us with no air conditioning or environmental modification in our two public galleries," Christakos said.

To preserve the gallery's collection, Christakos said they aim to keep the temperature around 20 C and relative humidity levels of around 50 per cent.

But Christakos said there isn't an immediate threat to the collection due to higher temperatures and humidity in the building.

"At the moment the collection storage space is serviced by another unit which is functioning as is the education space," she said.

Bad timing

Christakos said it could take up to a month to repair the two units, and the theft happened at a bad time for the gallery financially.

"We don't have a source of funds dedicated to this specific kind of repair at the moment," she said.

The gallery used its contingency funds to pay for its legal fees around Laurentian University's insolvency proceedings.

The university owns the Bell Mansion, which houses the gallery. Last year Laurentian received court approval to sell the building, to help pay its creditors, and it could potentially sell the collection, which is estimated to be worth about $4.8 million.

June is also the start of the gallery's financial year, which means it hasn't yet received some funds from various grants to help pay its operating expenses.

"I think anyone who operates a charity understands that, you know, the first day of your financial year, you start from zero, and build your budget and you build your funding through the year," Christakos said.

To help cover the repair costs the art gallery started an online GoFundMe campaign. 

Christakos said many people involved with the local art community have already donated.