galerie VAV gallery

We have a new deadline for the summer residency submissions: May 20th! This is an opportunity for 6 students to use our space during the summer to develop a practice and/or project. All the completed works will be exhibited at the beginning of the 2026 Fall semester. Full information in the link in bio Best wishes everyone

VAV is now accepting proposals for the 2026 Summer Residency (in-person), research-creation, in-progress work and any artistic discipline is welcome! We encourage students to submit their work and potentially use this opportunity to develop their practice in our space. DEADLINE: MAY 17TH RESIDENCY: JULY & AUGUST (3 weeks each) For more details, refer to the link in bio + form! Best of luck!

OFFCUTS In celebration of CUCCR’s 9th anniversary, OFFCUTS is a joint exhibition between Art Matters Festival & CUCCR that celebrates sustainable art-making practices. 📅 Exhibition runs May 4–9th ✂️ May 4th | 2–4PM — Plushie Making Workshop hosted by artist Owen Herlin 🎂 May 7th | 4–7PM — Birthday Celebration & Finissagef 📯 Live Jazz Band - Callum MacDonald & Emily Paige @callum_the @em.lev05 🎂 Free food and drinks! Come celebrate 9 years of creativity with us there’ll be cake, good company, and everything that makes this community special. We hope to see you there! 🥳🎨

Happy end of the semester! The VAV is inviting you to our finissage/closing party to leave with a warm goodbye Social time, live music, good food and drinks!! There will be a raffle so you can win gift cards too. Join us on April 30th and bring your friends Thursday April 30th - 6PM to 9PM

Our final show is already here! “RELICS IN TIME OF CORROSION” is a collaborative duo show by Cassi Camille & Sierra Koritko. The show explores the poetics of corrosion as a metaphor for loss, decay and the impermanence of materials that contribute to alienation and amnesia in a world of accelerated growth. Confronted with haunted landscapes and stories, we turn to vessels of devotion and care, representing an extension of our bodies and memories. Cassi Camille & Sierra Koritko create sculptural objects from whimsy, anxiety, curiosity & connection; reimagined as relics divorced from fixity and ownership. EXHIBITION: April 13-May 2 VERNISSAGE: April 16 CLOSING PARTY: April 30

We’re excited to invite you to one of our last exhibitions of the school year and semester. We will be hosting the Finissage for “IDYLL & LABOUR” on April 9th! In the meantime, you can enjoy the exhibition freely on your own time from Today until April 11th. As usual, a moment to socialize, discover new art from fellow students & unwind with our programmed live music. Featured artists: Renée Rothe Kelly Halseth Gemma Else Laure-Charlotte Côté

Beautiful captured moments from our latest vernissages: Keepers of Being & Once Upon a Time Special thanks to our guests who brought their sonic magic to our space last week: @callum_the - Guitar @fia0n3 - Voice @shayneondrums - Drums @sean.i.e - Bass @grilledcheesepleese - Sax Thanks to our wonderful photographer @asia.m.tl for these memories! We shall resume our regular programming shortly after the long-awaited ArtMatters Festival exhibitions & activities, we’re thrilled to have them at the VAV Gallery! See you all soon

Did you know that Art Matters is an artist run centre? If you’ve ever been curious about what an artist run centre is, how to start your own, or how to get involved (beyond this festival) this workshop is the place to start! Quebec has a rich history of artist-run centers: non-profit organizations operated by artists for artists. Like Art Matters, artist run centres promote values of participation, experimentation and innovation. The main activity of these institutions is to encourage the production, promotion, and research of contemporary art. All this, in spaces that exist outside of commercial structures, independent of the imperatives of the art market. Wednesday March 25 (18:00–20:00) VAV Gallery, 1395 boul. Rene-Levesque Présentation de l’atelier sur les centres d’artistes autogérés Les centres d’artistes autogérés : incubateurs pour artistes émergent.e.s Les centres d’artistes autogérés sont des organismes sans but lucratif, dirigés par les artistes pour les artistes. Promouvant les valeurs de participation, d’expérimentation et d’innovation, ces établissements ont pour activité principale de favoriser la production d’œuvres, leur diffusion et la recherche en art actuel dans des espaces qui se situent en dehors des structures commerciales, indépendamment des impératifs du marché de l’art. Ils mettent à la disposition des artistes des espaces, des équipements, des services et des ressources spécialisées et proposent des activités de réflexion, de formation, de perfectionnement et d’accueil lors de résidences et de séjours de production. Cet atelier vise à dresser un portrait général de la culture des centres d’artistes autogérés afin de mieux comprendre leur importance dans la professionnalisation et l’intégration des artistes émergent.e.s au monde de l’art actuel.

The Panafrican Student Union is organizing a series of workshops around art and panafricanism and VAV Gallery is pleased to collaborate with them. We will be hosting a lecture-workshop this Tuesday March 17 from 6PM to 8PM! The lecture will explore art history in the context of Panafricanism, particularly focusing on the birth of Maghrebi identity in post-colonial creativity and how it converged with the Panafrican movement, supported by artists, thinkers and activists. The lecture will be followed with an open discussion and the creation of a collective manifesto. This presentation is conducted by Salma Chouqair, an Art History student & independent researcher. Through her online publication Bayt Zuhal, her work uncovers narratives of Amazigh memory and examines new methods of understanding and presenting oral histories, creativity outside Western paradigms and the hybridity of culture in North Africa. To attend this event, make sure to register through the link provided! We’ll also provide snacks and refreshments 💫

We hope your reading week has been restful and productive! We are back to our regular program, and we invite you to the Vernissage of “KEEPERS OF BEING” this Thursday March 12th. Exhibition: March 9th - March 21st Vernissage: March 12th, 5:30PM to 7:30PM Featured artists: -Francis Robitaille -Julia Belmore -Hailey Fraser -Noé Elbaz -Sabrina Maisonneuve -Alec Turgeon

Colour is often treated as decoration, something secondary to form, structure, or meaning. In Western visual culture, it has frequently been associated with excess: emotional, superficial, bodily, or improper. Yet colour has never been neutral. It clings to bodies, marks differences, and signals belonging or exclusion. We “see red,” we “feel blue,” and when judgment enters perception, we say someone is “coloured” by experience. Language reveals what culture often tries to suppress: colour carries value, bias, and power. As artist and art historian David Batchelor writes in his seminal work Chromophobia, “The notion that colour is bound up with the fate of Western culture sounds odd […] and yet colour has been the object of extreme prejudice in Western culture […]. And as with all prejudices, its manifest form, its loathing, masks fear: fear of contamination and corruption by something that is unknown or appears unknowable.” The exhibition explores colour as a site of threat and the power that is derived from that threat. The works are arranged in clusters, and each cluster reflects a recurring trope in a Western approach to colour: Colour as excess Colour as unsayable: Colour as a threat to the self Colour as exile Together, these works ask viewers to reconsider colour not as surface, but as something that acts and disrupts. Colour is not a secondary consideration, but an intentional tool—one that can mark, unsettle, and wield power. VAV Gallery 1395 Boul. René-Lévesque O. March 23-28, 9:00-21:00 Vernissage: March 26th 18:00-21:00

The third exhibition of Winter 2026 is on and we are again delighted to invite you to the Vernissage for “ONCE UPON A TIME” EXHIBITION: February 16 - February 28 VERNISSAGE: February 19 - 5:30PM to 7:30PM Featured artists: - Mateo Alarie - Rosalie G. Beaudoin - Camille Derouin - Bhreagh Godin - Kaylen Schumann ONCE UPON A TIME invites you to rethink of memories and how we rewrite them to reflect our consciousness. Beyond simple fabulation, the artists use their own stories of childhood, identity and dreams to reimagine themselves and their lives beyond linear narratives. Like a bedtime story or a fairytale, this exhibition carves a path for you to absorb images without trying to find absence or fill-in gaps. We hope to see you there 💫 Graphics: @panosmic