The Gallery | your art. your voice.

Expectations vs. Reality

admin — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:51:26 +0000

Closing video played in the theatre featuring Ahmed Knowmadic and Radwan Mohamed. Check it out!

Sunbake Pita Bakery

admin — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:44:02 +0000

Thank you so much to our Platinum sponsor, Sunbake Pita Bakery, for the support and helping us to run this event. Check out the video which we enjoyed creating and which was aired at the event. Thanks also to Amir Chang for the numerous hours spent filming on site as well as editing the video. I’m craving a spinach & cheese pita now mmmm… :p

The Gallery Intro Vid

admin — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:13:54 +0000

Check out the Intro video to The Gallery 2012 here:

Breath in Poetry Promo Vid

admin — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:07:36 +0000

Have you seen the new promo video for the Breath in Poetry collective yet? Check it out here. Ahmed Knowmadic, our feature act in the spoken word show, is part of the BIP collective. Radwan Mohamed, who is one of our MCs, is also heavily involved with the BIP group. We’re glad to have them on board as BIP is THE key hub for spoken word in the community.

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 07:31:31 +0000

With The Gallery fast approaching (less than a week away!), we had a mega working meeting today. Some of us were there starting at noon and went all the way to 11pm but definitely a very productive (and exhausting) day. We’ve been talking to artists and it’s been quite a logistical puzzle trying to get all of the art submissions sorted. We finally had a chance to see all of the art in person and we were blown away at the talent that’s going to be on display on Saturday. Pretty excited not only about the quality of art & photography but also the diversity in styles and mediums employed. Space is going to be at a premium and the next challenge is finding a way to display the art properly in the AGA for your enjoyment. Thank you to all of the artists who have been so passionate about this project. This is ultimately all about the artist, whether it’s a spoken word artist, a photographer, or a painter. The artist isn’t someone whose work you see and admire but may never meet but in this case it’s the people around you, who you may have never guessed had such artistic skill.

The meeting was long but as you can see we were well equipped with lots of delicious food from one of the Somali restaurants on 118 Ave.! Thanks to Guled and the Centre for Race & Culture for letting us take over their place.

No joke, we have so many door prizes that it’s starting to stress Ihsan out trying to figure out how to distribute everything. As the Director of Funding, she’s done an amazing job coordinating all of the sponsorships and bringing in a lot of door prizes. We appreciate you supporting the arts and encouraging the artists and want to show you our appreciation with a few gifts. In this photo, everyone’s debating how to deal with the newest batch of door prizes that just came in unexpectedly because there’s only so much time in the program to go through the draws etc. We may have found a way, more on that to come soon…

Volunteer with us!

admin — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 05:05:31 +0000

Want to volunteer in a meaningful way for this exciting project? Email us at volunteer@thegalleryedmonton.com asap and we’ll do our best to get you involved. This is on a first come first serve basis so get in touch with us soon because the event is fast approaching!

Ahmed Knowmadic – Art

admin — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 05:09:08 +0000

Check out this video of some spoken word swag by our showcase feature – Ahmed Knowmadic. A small, fun preview of the lyrical wit to be found on Jan 14 on display at The Gallery.

admin — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 22:12:18 +0000

The Gallery organizing team had an exhaustive but productive meeting yesterday. Lots of excitement building, we’ve got lots of cool things planned which we hope you’ll enjoy on Jan 14! Met initially at Hamar Weyn at 111 Ave & 96 St with some delicious Somali food and then moved to the downstairs lounge to escape the hustle bustle of the main dining lounge. Thanks to the family that runs the restaurant for their hospitality. A few of us stayed afterwards to sit down and hammer out some details for the program. It gets pretty complicated when you consider all the juggling that has to happen with all of the interest from talented poets, art submissions from various artists, and finding time and figuring out how best to give out some of the amazing door prizes we’ve been blessed to receive. We checked out some of the cool art work inside Urban Shisha Lounge next door to Hamar Weyn and promptly got to work. You’ll see posters if you visit Hamar Weyne or Urban Shisha Lounge.

The posters are slowly starting to go up across town – seen here inside the busy U of A campus area hangout of Remedy Cafe. Hopefully you’ll start seeing them around! If you see a location that you think could benefit from a poster let us know and we’ll try our best to get the word out.

Official posters printed today

admin — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 01:30:30 +0000

The official publicity posters for The Gallery have just been printed today! Thanks so much to uncle Ashraf Jaffer (www.scancopyprint.com) for opening up his shop on a Saturday so we could print off posters on a weekend when almost everything is closed. Appreciate his generosity in printing at almost no cost but more importantly for taking the time and allowing us to tinker around in his back room getting the design and printing just right. Keep your eyes peeled for these posters. At a busy place/business in town and you’re not seeing our poster? Let us know and we’ll do our best to get it to that overlooked spot!

You’ll see these posters around town soon. Thanks to Riff C for taking the time to create the design for the poster in addition to the handbill designs which have been distributed previously. These look even better on large high quality 11 x 17 print!