Curatorial Context
The Community Art Show began in 2020, at a moment when being together had suddenly become difficult.
In a time marked by isolation and uncertainty, making offered another way to connect. The invitation was simple: create something and share it. There was no expectation of professional practice, formal training or a particular kind of art. What mattered was participation; the act of making something and placing it alongside the work of someone else.
The response was remarkable. People of different ages, experiences and creative practices contributed, filling the Museum with work that was personal, playful, thoughtful, experimental and unexpected. More importantly, the exhibition created a place for people to encounter one another through what they had made.
Seven years later, that original idea remains at the heart of the Community Art Show.
This year, more than 100 artworks have been brought together in the Museum. They do not follow a single theme or tell one story. Painting sits beside photography, textiles, drawing, sculpture, mixed media and other forms of creative expression. Some contributors have established artistic practices; others may be exhibiting their work publicly for the first time.
That range is intentional.
The Community Art Show is built around the idea that creativity belongs to everyone. Participation is open to anyone and everyone, without a jury determining whose work is worthy of being seen. In sharing the gallery together, the artworks ask us to look beyond traditional distinctions between artist and amateur and instead consider what becomes possible when people are simply given space to contribute.
Over seven years, the exhibition has become more than a response to the circumstances in which it began. The extraordinary number of people who continue to participate, and the connections formed through seeing, discussing and returning to the exhibition have made it part of the Museum’s regular programming.
Each year creates a different portrait of this place. Not a complete or definitive one, but a gathering of individual perspectives at a particular moment in time.
Together, more than 100 artworks make visible something that no single work could: a community creating alongside one another.
