Message from the Executive Director We began 2021 with the AGA doors still sealed to the public, in keeping with COVID-19 restrictions. This second period of public lockdown began on December 11, 2020 and extended to July 1, 2021. Despite the building being closed, the AGA was open for business. During this time, our team continued to develop and deliver a huge variety of new online, education and public programs, video exhibition tours, hands-on virtual workshops and events. The AGA continued to produce AGAlive, online events that featured artists in current exhibitions, from the AGA’s communities and represented in our Art Rental and Sales program. We also launched the Sidewalk Cinema, a video screen mounted on the exterior façade of the building, offering free, daily screenings of artistic content by artists, filmmakers and students from across the province. We continued to welcome school audiences to our reimagined, online school tours. AGA Education and Learning programs provided teachers and schools with online access to tools and content to continue to connect students to AGA exhibitions, local artists workshops and our trilingual arts programming. For the six months from July to December 2021, we were able to welcome back AGA Members and visitors, with appropriate safety measures, including: online advanced ticket booking, capacity limits, physical distancing markers, protective plexiglass barriers, hand-sanitizing stations as well as enhanced cleaning protocols. From an exhibition planning perspective, the six-month closure created many challenges. We installed the exhibition, The Scene, in January; Black Every Day
Greg Marshall, bearing, 2018. High definition video, 2 min 43 sec. Part of Sidewalk Cinema.
8 Report to the Community
