STRATUS

❗️SOUTH SIDE DROP BOX UPDATE❗️ Our friends at @annmsshop are moving! Tomorrow will be the last day that the drop box will be open at their current location. They will be reopening nearby in April, and will be hosting our drop box again at that point. If you have any film to drop off, please ensure it is done by our 12pm cutoff tomorrow, February 27. In the meantime, our southside drop box will be temporaily relocated to the south side location of @fooshyeg at 10544 Whyte Ave. Please note that their hours differ from annms, and are open 12-6 Tuesday- Saturday and 12-5 Sunday/ Monday. Our north side drop box at @site.94 will still be open 24/7.

Calling all artists, photographers, and sentimentalists— STRATUS PHOTO*LAB now offers high quality, affordable fine art and photo printing within Edmonton and area. Use the code FIRST30 at checkout for 30% off your first print.

STRATUS turned five earlier this month! We’ve grown in so many incredible and unexpected ways since we started. We started out as a group of friends throwing together our first launch event on January 2, 2020 @annmsshop . Since then, we’ve gone from just a small publication run by a group of friends to a non-profit with a dedicated community and PHOTO*LAB! Thank you so much for supporting everything we do, from our Hektar toy series, to our concept cafe, life-sized installations, community photowalks, lot sale, and all the little things we’ve thought of over the years. We wouldn’t be here without you! While our journey has been filled with unexpected twists, we hope to continue to put out creative projects that U love 2 C. Here is a recap of our achievements, and some of the faces behind them, as told by Hektar: Render by @lexmilo

A couple of candid moments from our Cosmic Kiwi launch 🚀 Thank you for coming out to celebrate with us! Special shoutout to @alleykatbeer for bringing this collab to life, @thecommonyeg for hosting us, and @acordingtodenise for the tunes! We had a lot of fun with you in the kiwi universe, cheers from Hektar and his new friend! Photos by @neatsauce & @traver.ca

SURPRISE! There’s a PART 2! In celebration of our recent STRATUS x @alleykatbeer collaboration, we’re teaming up with @menya.mori for a COSMIC KIWI inspired set dinner that explores the flavours that our collaborative beer was crafted around. Menya Mori will be hosting the pop-up on May 26th, 2026 from 4-10PM. Tickets and more information will be launching soon, on May 19, 2026 at 12PM. Stay tuned, and C U SOON 🙂

Just one week until we celebrate our launch into the Kiwi Cosmos with the STRATUS x @alleykatbeer event at @thecommonyeg 🥝 🥝 We wanted to give a preview of the mini zine project we’ll have at the event for you to create, printed at @site.94 . This incomplete space story will have you filling in events and characters to build your own narrative, illustrated on an 8-panel comic strip. @traver.ca created a riveting story of Hektar visiting the planet of Blue Elizabeth in search of kiwis, where he meets the species Mr.Pibb and their leader Keith Ubran in an emotionally conflicted song-and-dance. This activity is completely free— so we hope you come out and we’re excited to see what y’all come up with — C U SOON 💙

STRATUS PHOTO*LAB now offers select printing services for zines! We launched our print lab one year ago, and are excited to announce the expansion of our services to including saddle bound books with maximum size of 8x10” and length of 64 pages. Recently, we printed LIARS HELL for @c_o_u_p_e_ . This zine was 32 pages and printed on 48lb coated matte bond paper. Does this seem like your type of project? We can help you get the job done. For more details and to submit an inquiry head to our website through the link in our bio! Photos by: @thrvht Video shot by: @c_o_u_p_e_

STRATUS PHOTO*LAB launched our printing services one year ago today. We noticed a disconnect between what was considered high quality printing and the premium associated with it. Great, local printing doesn’t need to be inaccessible, and supporting us over a box-store means you get to see your money reinvested in community initiatives and tools that allow us to scale. So far, we have provided printing for gallery exhibitions, zines (more on that soon 👀), commercial clients, and everyone wanting a memory taken off the screen and shared physically. No matter the motive, your support means we can continue to provide our print services to Edmonton (and maybe beyond❗️) Some cake to celebrate, photographed by @neatsauce , printed at the STRATUS PHOTO*LAB. Video and process images captured by @thrvht

Very excited about our upcoming @stratusjournal x @alleykatbeer collaboration— STRATUS’ first official consumable project!!! I wanted to share some behind the scenes :-) I’m genuinely not a big beer drinker but if I do, I’d reach for a sour, and let me tell you.. this is likely the favorite sour I’ve tasted. The top flavour contenders the team wanted to experiment with were either Kiwi (Hektar’s favorite fruit if u didn’t know by now…) or leaning into a more fun tropical fruit that isn’t used very often like a soursop cream soda. While testing flavour combinations, soursop seemed to be winning— then we tried kiwi and there was a unanimous—“I think this is the one.” We played around with a couple secondary flavors, and lemongrass seemed to be the perfect pairing— adding that final citrus lift and completing the flavor. We’ve been building on Hektar’s little world for a while, with references to kiwi dating back to a sticker sheet made by @rmlmwd from 2021 (for those who’ve been following along!), and again with kiwi ice-cream created by @tyler.s.mah for our Life in Green pop-up in 2022. We originally went more along the idea of branding taking shape under “favorite fruit,” but through design iterations, a space-theme organically emerged and we landed on “cosmic kiwi.” The team worked really hard putting this production together— flavour-wise, story-telling, and design. I hope you’ll come celebrate with us at our launch party on May 7th @ the common! Our t-shirt pre-orders are also running until tomorrow at noon. See you soon!

WE HAVE LIFTOFF 🥝 We’ve been sitting on something very special for the past few months, and are very excited to finally share our first beverage collab EVER, with our friends at @alleykatbeer ! Andddd finally a flavour reveal! Our collaboration beer is a Cosmic Kiwi Lemongrass Sour, inspired by Hektar’s favourite fruit: kiwis and his desire to explore space with his new friend from Alley Kat. To celebrate this limited edition beer, we will be having a launch party @thecommonyeg on Thursday, May 7 from 6-9pm. We’ll be joined by @acordingtodenise who’ll be playing some tunes. Admission to the launch party is free! There will be beer available for purchase in singles or packs. We’ll also be selling some event exclusive merch including t-shirts, limited edition beer glasses, and stickers. Also, there will be a free pocket zine making space, where you can create your own space adventure with the help of our (human) prompts. This project is a major labour of love, where countless hours have been spent to make this something to raise a glass to. Pre-orders are still open for our collaborative t-shirts until 11:59 AM tomorrow April 10th while quantities last! We hope to see you there! Poster @kasunblue Can design @athomeinthedark Renders @thrvht Brew master @___morganp___

🥝 Pre-orders are open 🥝 You helped us land on a shirt design we love, and we’re so excited to share it with you! Pre-orders are now available through the link in our bio until April 10th at 12pm MT. This is the first reveal from what we’ve been working on with Hektar and his new friend, and we can’t wait to share the rest at our upcoming event with our friends at @alleykatbeer 👀 keep an eye out for more details coming later next week!

An unlikely friendship, maybe? But Hektar seems to think it’s a very good idea. With this new found friendship, we think something is brewing up… more to come soon!