Art Gallery of Sudbury finds way to thrive in community while its building remains closed

The Art Gallery of Sudbury is surfacing in the community after it had to close its doors in October.

At the time, engineers found structural issues with an internal staircase forcing the closure.

But the gallery has popped up just in time to put on its annual Creative Kids exhibition and open its boutique in a space at 174 Elgin Street.

Director and curator Demetra Christakos says the organization has faced a great deal of adversity in the past couple of years with COVID, then Laurentian University declaring insolvency threatening the future of the university-owned gallery property, then having its air conditioner's stolen, and finally being shut down.

Christakos says she'll get an update on the structural issue on Dec. 22.

"The last two years we kind of feel like for some reason we moved into the dark side of the moon and we're waiting for an eclipse," said Christakos.

"That's all I can say. So I'm, I'm hopeful. I don't know what's going to happen on December 22nd. I'm just, I have an extremely resilient and creative team around me."

Christakos doesn't want to entertain the idea that perhaps the gallery won't be able to move back into its building, where it is supposed to be until May 30, 2025.

She says she is looking forward to working toward a new gallery in the city's proposed cultural hub and planning must begin to bring exhibitions there, because they are usually arranged about three years in advance.

In the meantime, keeping children's art programming and other activities alive in the community is important to her.

Art classes were transferred in October to an alternate location Laurentian University's school of education with little disruption, and the annual exhibition of select children's work opens Thursday, Dec. 14 in a last-minute pop-up on Elgin Street.

The gallery's education and program manager, Nancy Gareh, was overseeing the mounting of work and spoke about the importance of the gallery maintaining its profile in the community despite a lack of permanent home.

"We have kids that have been coming to us for, you know, years," she said. "I mean they love these classes and we feel it's very important to really have them understand how an artist works and be able to really experiment with a variety of art materials."

The pop-up will also feature the gallery's gift boutique just in time for holiday shopping.