2024 Reflections
Wow, it’s now 2025! Time flies by.
Reflecting on my time so far at Artspace, it’s hard to believe I started here as part of my school curriculum, and am now a staff member.
I began during the summer as an intern for the Museum Management and Curatorship program where my main task was to create a Community Archive for Artspace. It is currently a work in progress, there is plenty more that needs to be done, but it has come a long way since May. We even had a small Community Archive exhibit on November 16th 2024 during the closing reception of From the Ground Up to showcase parts of Artspace’s history.
Since the Community Archive is the reason I am here, I felt it would be nice to share some documents in the first blog post of 2025.
This one does not have any context. We have had many theorize about who created it, when, and why, but do not have a concrete answer. It is my favourite piece just because I love that it is fish. Just fish. It is so odd but fun and I adore it.
If you know who created it, when, and why, I’d love to know!
As many know, Artspace has moved location quite a few times. This poster remains as a memory of one of the relocations.
Artspace member and volunteer, Peg Town, was present for the events that caused the decision and provided us with this information:
“In the Spring of 1994, Artspace moved out of the old market hall and into 129 Hunter Street. The move was actually a decision made by the Artspace board and artistic director, but the poster with the new gallery's name was in response to a series of disapproving remarks about Artspace programming from city council and the mayor.” -Peg Town
With preparations underway for the 2025 Book + Zine Fest, this is a good time to showcase a poster we have from the first Book + Zine Fest.
Curious about what it is? Here is a snippet from 2023’s press release:
“The two-day event will feature artist-made zines, comics and graphic novels, letterpress prints and cards, the work of small presses, woodcuts, screenprints, handmade books and other types of book and paper arts. All proceeds of sales will go to the artists.
Book arts encompass interdisciplinary approaches to text, craft and/or visual art. Techniques range from the fine crafts of printmaking and bookbinding to low tech photocopied zines and handmade artist books. These original works are affordable and collectable.” -Leslie Menagh
While this is not an archival document, it only felt fitting to share the newest Book + Zine Fest poster to go with the first one.
Our Programming Director, Jillian Ackert, has been hard at work preparing for it. Book + Zine vendor applications closed recently, so keep an eye out for news about who will be there!
We will also have bookbinder and artist Stuart Hill of George Hill & Co back this year selling book binding tools and materials! So if you’ve ever wanted to get into book making now’s your chance!
This poster will enter our Community Archive in the following weeks in order to document it now, and overtime will become a piece of history for future Artspace staff and visitors to look back on.
For a document from 32 years ago, this is still in relatively good shape and it is wonderful that we still have it.
Sub Rosa is a valuable part of Artspace’s history as it was published for many years showcasing events in Peterborough, things going on at the gallery, and many art-related adverts. While no longer in publication, Sub Rosas can still be found at various places around town; for instance at Trent University Library & Archives where people can request appointments to visit and read them in-person.
In the modern day, Artspace’s digital newsletters are similar in fashion to the Sub Rosas and act as a way for us to get information out to people. We are working to find a way to preserve the digital newsletters so that many years from now people can still access them.
Sometimes it can be easy to forget that things like posters will become part of history and we often end up tossing them out, but every document can tell a story and there are so many to learn about at Artspace. As we continue forward into 2025, make sure to hold onto flyers, newspapers, and more! Someday an archive will want those.
