Access Gallery

Access Gallery Founded in 1991, Access Gallery is an artist-run centre with a mission to create conditions of emerg

An artist-run centre established in 1991 and situated in Vancouver’s historic Chinatown, Access Gallery is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and presenting the work of emergent artists, curators and cultural practitioners, as well as those entering a new experimental phase of their practice. We enable critical conversations and risk taking through new configurations of audience, ar

tists and community. With this mandate, Access occupies a uniquely important position in Vancouver’s cultural landscape. The gallery often provides the occasion for an artist’s first solo exhibition (and have provided important exhibition opportunities for some of Canada's most successful contemporary artists at early stages in their careers). Access orients these artists to a wider dialogue and visibility within the community, while offering that community the opportunity to encounter new artists and artistic approaches through brave and engaging programming. Access produces a dynamic and ambitious yearly program of exhibitions, publications, our travelling artist residency Twenty-Three Days at Sea (2015-2017), our recently launched initiative for collaborative projects and occupation, PLOT; as well as outreach programs that include local, national and international collaborations, talks, performances, screenings, readings, workshops, walking tours and symposia. Committed to reflecting a broad range of artistic disciplines as well as cultural and socio-political concerns relevant to our contemporary world, our programming is nationally and internationally recognized. Access Gallery compensates artists in accordance with CARFAC guidelines, and is a long-standing member of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres (PAARC). PLOT is a space intended for occupation by collectives, artist initiatives, nascent or small-scale organizations and those conducting itinerant projects who seek space, greater visibility and, most importantly, who desire to cultivate a relationship with a community or public. For more information, please visit our website here: http://accessgallery.ca/plot/

To learn more about our incredibly unique, travelling artist residency, Twenty-Three Days at Sea, please visit the official residency page: https://www.facebook.com/23DaysResidency

Access Gallery acknowledges the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and BC Gaming Commission, the City of Vancouver, the Burrard Arts Foundation, the Koerner Foundation, the Audain Foundation for the Visual Arts, as well as our valuable donors, members and volunteers. With gratitude as guests, Access is located on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Currently on view at Access Gallery is PENDING, curated by CCST Guest Curator, Cynthia MacMillan.Inspired by its site, P...
08/13/2026

Currently on view at Access Gallery is PENDING, curated by CCST Guest Curator, Cynthia MacMillan.

Inspired by its site, PENDING thinks alongside the exhibiting artists: Sonny Assu, Dana Qaddah, Deon Feng, Allysa Pierre, and Amanda Kachadoorian Jordi. Together, the exhibition maps moments where competing systems of value become legible. Across the exhibition, material interventions and plays on presence and absence are political and poetic, exposing the suspended state of being in-between – present yet opaque in the motion of the everyday – where land, labour, and belonging are continually negotiated.

PENDING is presented with support from the Audain Endowment for Curatorial Studies through the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory in collaboration with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at The University of British Columbia.

Images by Rachel Topham.

Access was founded on the belief that artists need places willing to give their practices a platform before their work i...
08/07/2026

Access was founded on the belief that artists need places willing to give their practices a platform before their work is proven, polished, or easily understood.
For 35 years, the gallery has held space for emerging artists, experimental ideas, and practices that might otherwise be overlooked. It has supported artistic interventions that challenge prevailing norms, confront difficult questions, and create critical conversations around social justice.

Around that work, a community has grown.
Artists, audiences, neighbours, collaborators, volunteers, curators, members, donors, staff, and board members have all helped shape what Access has become.
In 2026, as we celebrate 35 years of this work, we are raising $7,500 to support artist fees and production, free exhibitions and public programs, and accessible community and youth programming.

This campaign is about helping Access continue to make room for bold ideas, ambitious practices, and meaningful encounters between artists and the communities around them.

Every contribution helps us carry this work forward.
Donate through the link in our bio.

Thank you for being part of Access’s history, and for helping shape what comes next.✨

[Open Call extended] Due to popular demand, we are extending the deadline of our Member Show’s deadline to August 8th, 2...
08/02/2026

[Open Call extended] Due to popular demand, we are extending the deadline of our Member Show’s deadline to August 8th, 2026!

𝑴𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑲𝒊𝒏 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑬𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑾𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅

This year, Access Gallery annual Members’ Show enters a new chapter as a 𝐣𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 and 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 exhibition. Selected artworks will be brought together in a group exhibition that reflects the diversity of our artist community and explores meaningful connections between artistic practices.

We welcome submissions across all mediums responding to the theme 𝑴𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑲𝒊𝒏 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑬𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑾𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅

In a time shaped by technological upheaval, climate change, displacement, and mass extinction, how do we reconnect and create bonds beyond difference? How do we imagine new forms of kinship with each other and the world around us?

Exhibition Dates: October 12 – November 8, 2026
Apply by: August 8, 2026 (11:59 PM PDT) [*Extended*]
Selected Artists Announced: Early September
Artwork Delivery: October 1, 2026

The $25 submission fee includes a one-year Access Gallery membership. Current Access Gallery members may submit free of charge.

Join our artist community and share your work with Access Gallery.

Apply via link in bio >> open call submission 2026 or visit our website accessgallery.ca>>NEWS>>Call for Artist

Access Gallery is pleased to present PENDING, a group exhibition featuring works by Sonny Assu, Deon Feng, Amanda Kachad...
07/22/2026

Access Gallery is pleased to present PENDING, a group exhibition featuring works by Sonny Assu, Deon Feng, Amanda Kachadoorian Jordi, Allysa Pierre, and dana qaddah.

📆06 August 2026 - 1 October 2026
✨Curated by Cynthia MacMillan
🥂Opening reception: August 6, 6-8 pm

The term pending evokes a state of suspension, anticipation and becoming. Across the exhibition, the material contradictions present in each of the artworks pose prompts and questions that are up in the air – pending.

What does it mean to cast a discarded wood offcut in bronze?
Why does a fan direct me toward a study of a limestone quarry?
Where are the mirrors made? Where am I made or what have I been made into?
What happens when the labour of the art preparator becomes an object of display?
Will our suitcases make it… filled with concrete?
What does it mean to return home?

Works by Sonny Assu, Deon Feng, Amanda Kachadoorian Jordi, Allysa Pierre, and Dana Qaddah each produce an affect of suspense that develops into a shared field of inquiry. Together, the works open a dialogue about the entanglements of territory, labour, and the accumulation of value, approaching these questions from distinct points of departure. The exhibition examines an in-between: the latent suspended space or condition between state and capital. Placing the in-between on hold is to map points of contact between the market and colonial structures, and to then consider concrete resistance through a reflection on belonging.

PENDING is presented with support from the Audain Endowment for Curatorial Studies through the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory in collaboration with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at The University of British Columbia.

Join us on Friday, June 19th for an artist talk by Alvin Luong, presented alongside the exhibition Before I Was Coral, I...
06/08/2026

Join us on Friday, June 19th for an artist talk by Alvin Luong, presented alongside the exhibition Before I Was Coral, I Was a Refugee.

06.19.’26; 6:00 PM
Access Gallery
222 E Georgia St.,
Vancouver

Before I Was Coral, I Was a Refugee centres around the waypoint of Bidong Island, Malaysia, a refugee camp that became the most densely populated place on earth in the fallout of the Vietnam-America War. Today home to a commercial coral farming operation, the island becomes an anchor for Luong’s atmospheric video works, which rest among frottage and sculptural references to Bidong.

Before I Was Coral, I Was a Refugee offers a shifting glimpse into an underwater world, where the cross-Pacific extraction of coral from at-risk coastal waters echoes the movements and displacement of Vietnamese refugees fifty years prior.

Alvin Luong works with stories of human migration, land, and dialogues from diasporic working class communities to create artworks that reflect upon historical development and its intimate effects on the lives of people. Luong has exhibited at the Backyard Biennial by Whitechapel Gallery (2026), Mercer Union (2026); Times Art Museum, Guangzhou (2024); The Polygon Gallery, Vancouver (2021); and Gudskul, Jakarta (2019). He has held resident artist appointments at the Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing; HB Station Contemporary Art Research Center, Guangzhou; and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. He was longlisted for the Sobey Art Award (2023), and his works are held in the TD Bank Art Collection, Toronto; and the Permanent Collection of The Rockefeller Foundation, New York City.

We are proud to present Before I Was Coral, I Was a Refugee, a solo exhibition by Alvin Luong. Opening reception: June 1...
05/30/2026

We are proud to present Before I Was Coral, I Was a Refugee, a solo exhibition by Alvin Luong.

Opening reception: June 18, 2026, 7:00 pm

Before I Was Coral, I Was a Refugee centres around the waypoint of Bidong Island, Malaysia, a refugee camp that became the most densely populated place on earth in the fallout of the Vietnam-America War. Today home to a commercial coral farming operation, the island becomes an anchor for Luong’s atmospheric video works, which rest among frottage and sculptural references to Bidong.

Before I Was Coral, I Was a Refugee offers a shifting glimpse into an underwater world, where the cross-Pacific extraction of coral from at-risk coastal waters echoes the movements and displacement of Vietnamese refugees fifty years prior.

Alvin Luong works with stories of human migration, land, and dialogues from diasporic working class communities to create artworks that reflect upon historical development and its intimate effects on the lives of people. Luong has exhibited at the Backyard Biennial by Whitechapel Gallery (2026), Mercer Union (2026); Times Art Museum, Guangzhou (2024); The Polygon Gallery, Vancouver (2021); and Gudskul, Jakarta (2019). He has held resident artist appointments at the Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing; HB Station Contemporary Art Research Center, Guangzhou; and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. He was longlisted for the Sobey Art Award (2023), and his works are held in the TD Bank Art Collection, Toronto; and the Permanent Collection of The Rockefeller Foundation, New York City.

Last chance!An untitled exhibition, featuring works by Kyla Dooley, Marjan Jamal, Tajliya Jamal, Bobby Malone, and Deepa...
05/14/2026

Last chance!

An untitled exhibition, featuring works by Kyla Dooley, Marjan Jamal, Tajliya Jamal, Bobby Malone, and Deepali Raiththa, closes today.

This exhibition explores themes of relationality and the reification of resistance. It asks: what does the embodiment of resistance look like?

Curated by Farah ElAfifi.

Image: Kyla Dooley, The Myth of Sisyphus, 2024. Courtesy of the artist.

On April 2nd, 2026 at 7:00PM, Access Gallery will be hosting the opening reception of its untitled Spring Exhibition. Cu...
03/27/2026

On April 2nd, 2026 at 7:00PM, Access Gallery will be hosting the opening reception of its untitled Spring Exhibition. Curated by Farah Elafifi, the exhibition features the work of local artists Kyla Dooley, Tajilya & Marjan Jamal, Bobby Malone, and Deepali Raiththa. The exhibition explores themes of relationality and the reification of resistance. It asks: What does the embodiment of resistance look like?

Access Gallery invites you to embody resistance, and to witness the first ever live performance of Mergence by Deepali Raiththa. Join us for this unique opening on April 2nd at 6pm.

Artwork imagery courtesy of Deepali Raiththa
Photography by Rosalina Libertad

Join us at Access Gallery on Friday, January 23rd for a Q&A with Singing Water Stone artist Siku Allooloo. This in-perso...
01/17/2026

Join us at Access Gallery on Friday, January 23rd for a Q&A with Singing Water Stone artist Siku Allooloo.

This in-person event is free and open to all—see you there!

💫 Artist Q&A with Siku Allooloo
📍 222 E Georgia St, Vancouver
🕚 2:30 pm PST

Join us on Thursday, January 22 at 6 pm for the opening reception of Singing Water Stone, a solo exhibition by Siku Allo...
01/10/2026

Join us on Thursday, January 22 at 6 pm for the opening reception of Singing Water Stone, a solo exhibition by Siku Allooloo.

Image: Still from Spirit Emulsion, 2022, courtesy of the artist.

Address

222 East Georgia Street
Vancouver, BC
V6A1Z7

Opening Hours

Tuesday 12pm - 5pm
Wednesday 12pm - 5pm
Thursday 12pm - 5pm
Friday 12pm - 5pm
Saturday 12pm - 5pm

Telephone

1.604.689.2907

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