PROJECT
KEEPING ART WITHIN REACH
Three projects that brought art into people’s homes when the doors had to close.
When public health restrictions closed the gallery, the studios, and the classrooms, The Old School House did not pause. It changed shape. Three projects, delivered across 2020 and 2021, moved art out of the building and into people’s living rooms, kitchen tables, and neighbourhoods, at a moment when connection was scarce and isolation was the norm.
Home Studio Tours took audiences inside the working spaces of local artists, offering an intimate look at how the work actually gets made.
Butterflies, delivered in partnership with the Regional District of Nanaimo, put watercolour paper into people’s hands. Participants painted butterflies at home, and the finished works came together as a shared community installation.
Colouring Pages commissioned local artists to create original, downloadable pages, free for anyone to print at home. The project put money directly into artists’ hands at a moment when nearly every exhibition, market, and class had been cancelled.
Why this project matters
Arts organizations were among the hardest hit by pandemic closures, and so were the artists who depend on them. These three projects did two things at once: they kept the community connected to creative practice when gathering was impossible, and they kept work flowing to local artists. They also proved something worth remembering, that the value of an arts centre is not only in its building.
Project partners
THE OLD SCHOOL HOUSE ARTS CENTRE
REGIONAL DISTRICT OF NANAIMO
RELATED PROJECTS
PROJECT INFO:
DATE: 2020–2021
LEAD ORGANIZATIONS:
The Old School House Arts Centre
PARTNERS:
Regional District of Nanaimo
PROJECT FOCUS:
Community Response; Accessible Arts at Home