About

Bang is an artists’ run center. It supports artistic creation and offers a diversity of cultural activities open to the public and free of charge.

Its 6 exhibition rooms allow the diffusion of works of art and its specialized bookshop offers a selection of titles on art. A residency program for professional artists offers research-creation periods over several months.

The Bang centre has an unconditional commitment to audacity and experimentation. This audacity is embodied in the way we work with artists and think about the strategic development of the organization, whether it is to appropriate the potential of digital technology, collaborate with intersectoral partners or even affirm our difference as an organization in peripheral regions.

Bang is a non-profit organization (NPO) based on a membership structure. Eleven members of the corporation are elected to form a board of governors. The centre employs 8 people who are responsible for artistic activities, the bookstore and the management and development of the organization.

We program our activities to support the work of emerging and established artists from Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec, Canada and abroad.

The Bang Centre community wishes to establish the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region as a leader and a key player in the field of contemporary art and digital culture in Quebec.

The Bang Centre is a regional development partner and an economic player that works to recognize the expertise developed by artist-run centres.

The vision carried by the Bang Centre involves the creation of new knowledge, innovation and the sharing of know-how between the different sectors of activity of our society to develop distinctive, relevant and useful common approaches. This vision is reflected in the Bang Centre’s relationship with artists and partners.

Consequently, the Bang Centre claims the need for art and the artist in society and seeks to position them as centres that bear witness to the evolution of society, by offering a constructive critical look at the various challenges of the contemporary era.

This vision is based on freedom of expression, access to art and culture, the need for a society to respect the importance of the artist’s work.

The values of the Bang center are:

Trust, which is achieved by respecting each other’s areas of expertise and a strong desire for complementarity.
Transparency in its objectives and actions, which favours collaborative work with its partners.
A committed responsibility to artists, cultural workers and the community, which is reflected in its ongoing commitment to support the collective needs of the cultural community.
A strong sense of professionalism in all its interventions and services offered to artists and the community.
An unconditional commitment to innovation as a way of developing and sustaining the organization and as a vehicle for social and cultural development.

History of the organization

With its nearly 60-year history, Bang Centre is one of the oldest artist-run centres in Canada. Paying attention to the transformations that have taken place over the years, our organization was always amongst the pioneers of our field. Even today, the major changes currently underway in the Canadian artist-run centre community confirm that our constant desire to gather the strengths of our community is a choice for the future.

1958 – 1986

1975 – 1997

2012

1958 - 1986 : Espace Virtuel

The metamorphoses that led to the current shape of the Bang Centre are consistent with its history. Indeed, the desire to organize support for artists began in Chicoutimi in 1958 with the founding of the Cercle des arts de Saguenay. Even then, there were already benefit activities to offer scholarships to artists and allow them to continue their training. In 1966, Le Cercle des arts became La Société des arts de Chicoutimi. The corporation then invited professional artists to give master classes. Several works have been donated to the corporation by these artists in order to build a collection. In 1986, the centre adopted the name Espace Virtuel and formally embraced the identity of the artist-run centre.

@Denyse Gérin

1975 - 1997 : La Galerie Séquence

In parallel with these transformations, in the 1970s, a collective of artists organized artistic events in Jonquière at the Maison du Cran. The name Galerie de l’Arche was adopted in 1975 and became one of the first multidisciplinary centres of the time. As the activities gradually turned towards photography, a name change took place to give birth to the gallery Séquence which began its activities in 1983. The first year of activity took place in the gallery of the hall of the National Exhibition Centre, then Sequence moved to rue Saint-Dominique. In 1988, Séquence moved its activities to Chicoutimi on Avenue du Séminaire. Finally, in 1997, the corporation acquired a four-storey building located on Racine Street.

2012 to present : Centre Bang

In 2012, after hundreds of exhibitions, artist residencies and large-scale projects, the Galerie Séquence and Espace Virtuel artist-run centres are embarking on a process of reflection concerning the integration of their structures, while respecting the history and expertise of each organization. The Bang Centre was inaugurated on October 17, 2013, bringing together in a single entity the two communities, previous artistic orientations, boards of directors, employees and resources available to artists. This transformation was once again in line with previous transformations, that is, a constant adaptation to current artistic practices and a desire to strategically position the organization to promote its mission and work in collaboration with the community in our region.