Ten years ago, The Reach launched Emerge, an initiative designed to support studio and mural artists, curators, and designers with ties to the Fraser Valley in the early phases of their careers. Two professional development programs exist under the umbrella of Emerge: Art on Demand and CITI/SEEN. Art on Demand is an exhibition series that brings together aspiring curators with emerging artists to develop four capsule exhibitions per year. Every summer, the CITI/SEEN program partners a mentor muralist with a team of budding artists to design and install a public mural in Abbotsford’s Historic Downtown district. Participation in these two programs has provided Emerge alumni with concrete skill- and portfolio-building experiences that can lead to future grant, residency, and exhibition opportunities. Over the past decade, The Reach has fostered the exceptional creative talent of more than 80 participants.
The 10th anniversary of this landmark initiative has been a welcome occasion to reconnect, engage, and collaborate with Emerge alumni. Over the past several months, alumni from near and far have convened to network, share recent career developments, and shape the Emerge 10th Anniversary Project. At the heart of these celebrations is this invitational exhibition featuring recent and newly created works in a wide range of mediums by 33 artists. These works grapple with notions of embodiment, identity and its performance, intergenerational memory, myth and spirituality, resistance, the natural world and the perils it faces, as well as formal investigation and art-historical mediation.
This exhibition is only one component of the Emerge 10th Anniversary Project. Other initiatives include the inaugural installment of The Reach’s Inside/Out banner art series on view on the Trethewey St. side of our building and a special Emerge 10th Anniversary mural commission will be installed at The Rail District in Historic Downtown Abbotsford this summer. We hope you will join us in celebrating our city’s growing arts sector throughout the year!
Photography in the exhibition is most welcome—don’t forget to use #emerge10th when posting about the exhibition on social media.
