Owens Free Space

12 March – 10 April, 2022

Owens Free Space is an unfolding community resource and creative production space. Inspired by the spirit of infoshops—non-hierarchical, informal centres for art, activism, and information exchange found around the world—Owens Free Space serves as an alternative, open site of learning and making.

Discover a zine library of nearly 450 zines, adhesive vinyl for hand cutting, and a photocopier for zine making. Contribute to an ongoing collaborative mural or give a record a spin. Make a zine to provoke and inform. Leave something you create behind for someone else to explore. Visit briefly, or as often as you want. This is your space for putting ideas into action.

This space was developed by Tara Bursey, Lassonde Artist-in-Residence at Mount Allison University in collaboration with Lucy MacDonald, Curator of Education and Community Outreach, Rachel Thornton, Curator of Digital Engagement, and fine arts students Daisy Graham, Chloe Lundrigan, Kaya Panthier, and Shivanya Ra.

Tara Bursey is an interdisciplinary artist, self-publisher and arts worker from Hamilton, Ontario. Her artwork has been exhibited across Canada as well as in Copenhagen, Berlin, and Eye, Suffolk, UK, and she has presented her research in the areas of textiles and contemporary art at Symposia in Los Angeles, Sackville, and Savannah. Most recently, she has worked rigorously in the areas of programming and education, bringing arts education to first and second graders at her neighbourhood school, and curating exhibitions about zines, trade union banners, and professional wrestling. www.tara-bursey.com

Through Owens Free Space, Tara brings together interests and experience in art production, print, exhibition design, programming, zine libraries, and community collaboration to create an authentic, accessible public space where radical art and ideas can emerge.

This project was made possible thanks to the Reopening Fund of the Canada Council for the Arts. The Owens Art Gallery acknowledges the generous support of all its funders, including Mount Allison University, the Canada Council for the Arts, the New Brunswick Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture, the Town of Sackville, and the Friends of the Owens.

We would like to acknowledge that the Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, is located within the traditional territory of Mi’kma’ki, the unceded ancestral homelands of the Mi’kmaq. Our relationship and our privilege to live on this territory was agreed upon in the Peace and Friendship Treaties of 1725 to 1752. Because of this treaty relationship, it is to be acknowledged that we are all Treaty People and have a responsibility to respect this territory.

Owens Art Gallery
Mount Allison University
61 York Street Sackville, NB, E4L 1E1 • 506-364-2574
owens@mta.ca
www.owensartgallery.com
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Monday to Friday 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Saturday and Sunday 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Admission is Free
Masks are mandatory and proof of vaccination is required.

The Owens is partially accessible. The stairs from the entrance nearest the University Chapel have a handrail. There is also ramp access at this entrance, however, the ramp is steep. The stairs to the entrance off York Street have a handrail, but no ramp. The main floor of the Owens is wheelchair accessible. Our second-floor gallery and cisgender bathrooms are located in the basement and are not accessible. Two flights of stairs lead to each of these floors. The Owens welcomes guide dogs and other service animals. There are two, reserved, accessible parking spaces on the York Street side of the Gallery and one in the circular driveway adjacent to the Gallery.

If you have any questions about your visit, please email owens@mta.ca or call (506) 364-2574.