In 2019, Humber Galleries was integrated into the Faculty of Media, Creative Arts and Design and given the opportunity to work more closely with students and creatives at Humber. In an effort to redefine Humber Galleries in this new setting, we developed an initiative called “Campus as a Canvas”. The idea behind this was to expand our presence beyond the Galleries’ four walls and look at both Humber Campuses as potential spaces to exhibit artwork. Since then, “Campus as a Canvas” has come to be a guiding principle for the Galleries and taken on a life of its own across the College. With Humber College growing at an exponential rate, so too does the volume and quality of creative work produced by students; to ensure this work is properly showcased–and with our gallery space only having so much capacity–we have integrated the entirety of the Humber campuses as our display space and “canvas”.  

This initiative has allowed Humber Galleries to turn otherwise unused or empty spaces into Pop-Up Spaces, where student artwork can be showcased. In addition, Humber Galleries has championed public art and engagement to the Humber community with sculpture installations like Cover Up (The Reveal) by Thomas J Price, our roaming Public Piano painted by Jacquie Comrie, and monumental found object installation Humberthropocene by mural artist Anya Mielniczek. As we continue to work remotely through 2020 and 2021 this idea of taking Campus as a Canvas outside the walls, and into the broader community, has expanded even further with more public art installations coming throughout 2021. 

Visit our Pop-Up Galleries page here to check out some of the Humber spaces we’ve already converted!