Inside an abandoned looking single-floor grey building near the Eramosa and Speed rivers is a gallery with modern art meant to spark conversations.
The gallery called Stadium was started by artist Danan Lake. It’s located at 70 Wyndham St. where it originally was an ice cream shop, then a used car business, and then a construction site office.
The building is what kept Lake in Guelph. He would pass by the building on his route to the University of Guelph, where he finished a masters of fine arts in the spring. He thought it would be a great space for him to create projects in.
Lake went back home to British Columbia after graduating but the summer’s wildfires threw his plans for a loop. He came back to Guelph in the fall and to his surprise the building was up for lease. Within two and a half weeks of signing the lease and renovating the space, it had its first exhibition in late October.
Stadium might only last a year.
It’s not because the gallery doesn’t charge admission. “It depends on the landlord. So I'm basically there until his zoning changes,” said Lake.
Over the years Lake has run exhibitions out of rented venues and outdoor spaces to create opportunities for himself and his peers.
Stadium is meant to be an accessible and approachable space for its artists and visitors. Lake has been intentionally seeking artists whose work doesn’t fit the commercial mould of traditional art galleries. Commercial meaning work that is art collector friendly.
He looks for art that is experimental, interactive, performance focused and things that don’t have to be hung on a wall. Stadium’s second exhibit Cartoon Logic featured a large hanging anvil, a pyramid of bombs and dress shirts with a fan blowing air through them from artists Anna Golding and Atticus Hammer.
The exhibit featured a collapsible chair held together by VELCRO, almost like a prank chair. Families would come in to try to put the chair back together.
Seeds Start in the Dark is the current exhibit at Stadium, running until March 14. Co-curator of the exhibit, sophia bartholomew (the artist intentionally uses lowercase for their name), thinks it's unique to have an exhibit about gardening in the dead of winter.
“I think in a space like this, it's a show that we're doing as peers for fun with no money,” they said. It gives opportunities for flexibility and playfulness for the artists.
"Having both a space for more experimental practices and then also sort of an avenue to show it to a wider public that maybe wouldn't always be engaging with contemporary art. That's kind of where the name Stadium came from, is thinking about how the public relates to art, but then also how we as artists relate to our work with the public, because I think that there's kind of a disconnect, especially in big institutions," said Lake.
He has his studio at the gallery and it allows him to work on pieces while also talking about current exhibits with gallery goers.
To make money Lake creates pieces people can buy that match the themes of the exhibits. He’s made mix tapes and books filled with images of Post-it notes that were stuck to the gallery walls.
He hopes to host thesis defences at the gallery for U of G fine arts students. If the building ends up being demolished he thinks Stadium could take a different form but doesn’t know what it could look like yet.
With possible zoning changes it has given Lake a motivating sense of urgency. This is why the exhibitions are only up for three to five weeks.
“I'm really trying to get as many shows through the space as I can, while I have it. And that's why I did the first show so quick, is because I didn't want to be wasting any of the … precious time with the space,” said Lake.