Toronto Free Gallery is a non-profit and activist art gallery in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is dedicated to providing a forum for social justice, cultural, urban and environmental issues expressed through all media. Toronto Free Gallery's role is to be a creative laboratory that aims to provide artists with a space to experiment, explore new ideas, question norms and challenge both themselves and their audiences. Toronto Free Gallery's role is to present programming that highlights and offers creative responses to urgent issues such as urban development, social justice and sustainability. They do this by fostering collaboration between creative communities through exhibitions and events that include visual artists, activists, film-makers, performance artists, writers, architects, urban planners, ecologists, and academics, to name a few.
Goals
Provide a forum for social, cultural, environmental and urban issues expressed through all media Maintain a space where artists, architects, and socially and environmentally conscious organizations can present meaningful projects in an artistic way Create a venue for dialogue about the communities, cities and world we live in through exhibitions, panel discussions and other events Offer a space that includes multiple voices and experiences Provide a space that supports and provides dialogue and exhibition space for young and emerging artists as well as those who are established Address urgent social and environmental issues in a positive and constructive way Broaden Toronto's arts audience by: working with diverse communities, creating programming that includes participation from the arts and non-art communities, including youth programming, creating programming that has broad audience appeal and organizing projects with a presence outside the gallery, through past site-specific and public projects
History
Toronto Free Gallery was established in September 2004 by Executive Director Heather Haynes. The inaugural exhibition, Project Toronto, was a group exhibition that aimed to derive new insights into the problems confronting the urban landscape of Toronto. With this exhibition the overall goals and artistic vision of Toronto Free Gallery were established. In 2008 the gallery relocated from Toronto's East End to the Bloor/Lansdowne neighbourhood. The gallery receives funding from Canada Council for the Art, Ontario Arts Council, Ontario Trillium Foundation, and Toronto Arts Council. Important Exhibitions Include: Project Toronto, The Corporate World, Vacant Lots, The Centre Cannot Hold, Toronto Free Library, All Power To the People: Graphics of The Black Panther Party, Creative Activism, Toronto Free Broadcasting, Strip-mining for Creative Cities, and The Pinky Show.
