About

Gallery Gachet is a unique artist-run centre located in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood of Vancouver, on the stolen, sacred, and ancestral homelands of the xwməθkwəy’əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Gallery Gachet is a collectively-run exhibition and studio space built to empower participants as artists, administrators and curators.Through artistic means, we aim to demystify and challenge issues related to mental health and social marginalization in order to educate the public and promote social and economic justice. The organization’s cultural services have grown from the operation of a small, basement studio in downtown Granville South, offering one exhibition a year in 1993, to coordinating approximately 1500 square feet of public-access arts space with up to 12 exhibitions each year, in addition to residencies, workshops, artist talks, symposia, special projects and other events.

Our exhibition schedule features a range of contemporary and experimental artwork in all media in addition to community arts programming. This balance allows us to involve our community of developing artists and professionals alike in collaboration and dialogue, in the interest of challenging each other to new ways of seeing. Collective Members are the governing body of Gallery Gachet, guiding management and programming while building professional art skills and capacity. This structure grows out of our central mandate as a space for the interplay of art and healing, which our empowerment model builds upon.

We see a time and place where people who have experienced marginalization feel fully supported in their struggle for a creative life and career, including access to adequate housing, studio space and economic security. We believe that the expression and practice of art and active participation in culture-building is a human right, and that art and culture are critical elements of a healthy society.

Our Basis of Unity

• We agree to support the artistic and professional development of our community as a means to achieve social, cultural and economic justice
• We agree to support the wellness of people marginalized by their mental health, trauma and/or abuse experience
• We work for the elimination of discrimination against people marginalized by their mental health, trauma and/or abuse experience
• We believe in the expression and practice of art and culture as a human right
• We agree to promote the critical function of art and culture in building a healthy society
• We believe art is a means for survival, self-expression and health