Grunt Gallery is an artist-run centre founded in September of 1984 by a group of 8 artists. The founding idea was to support marginalized artists whose work would not quite fit into established galleries. This includes Outsider, queer, First Nations, feminist, and immigrant artists. The Grunt Gallery has a reputation of being an inclusive and open space that allows for intercultural dialogue, allowing them to positively impact Canadian contemporary art practice and artist-run centre culture. In the ‘80s, their mandate broadened to include artists from diverse cultural backgrounds as well as emerging and senior artists. Additionally, Grunt Gallery is working to forge relationships with Aboriginal artists. Grunt Gallery was one of the first galleries in Vancouver to consistently exhibit contemporary First Nations artists. The Grunt Gallery was funded by Canada Council beginning in 1987, and in the 1990s in addition to having a board of directors formed with Glenn Alteen as Official Director the Grunt Gallery received it’s first operations funding. However, the first 6 years of the gallery’s opening, hours of unpaid, volunteer labour, donations of materials and equipment, and rent paid by residents living in the loft above kept the Grunt Gallery running. In 2010, Grunt Gallery launched “Activating the Archive” (ATA) which consists of 6 curated websites containing a wide selection of the archival material accumulated by the gallery since the very beginning. ATA is unique for a gallery in that they invite those interested to easily access the archival material of past and present-day projects for research and educational purposes. 

If you would like to download this poster a clearer version is available here: http://newhive.com/saravisa340/grunt-gallery-poster-for-visa-375-sara-tung