Gamman House (Photo & Design: VanierNow 2012; Floor Plan: City of Ottawa)
What could it mean to create spaces for culture? Transforming existing under-used or unused spaces – particularly those in City-owned properties – into accessible spaces for diverse and emerging artists is one recommendation in the City of Ottawa’s freshly minted Renewed Action Plan for Arts, Heritage and Culture in Ottawa (2013-2018), passed earlier this year. In Vanier, we’re about to see that idea brought to life with the 2013 opening of artist studios in Gamman House, one of two designated heritage properties in Vanier, located at 306 Cyr Avenue.
With its diversity, heritage, proximity to downtown – and affordability – there may be little surprise in witnessing what has been referred to Vanier’s cultural renaissance. At a Community Forum in early November, City staff spoke of exciting findings in a cultural mapping of the neighbourhood – and stories of the arts infusing Vanier are increasingly common. While looking ahead to C’est Chill, a one-day festival on December 1, one might also look back to Beechwood’s first Art in the Parking Lot, held in June. Currently, the International Digital Miniprint Exhibition 7 continues at Voix Visuelle (81 Beechwood), while affordable space led Ottawa’s own The Gallop to record its first release right here, earlier this year.
Scheduled to become home to studio space in 2013, Gamman House will again become a positive addition to the mix. The small City-owned wood-frame cottage-style property on Cyr Avenue was designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in 2004 as a property of cultural heritage significance. While having been empty for several years, the property was home in the 1990s to Club 60 de Vanier, the forerunner to Centre Pauline-Charron, and was then briefly occupied by the Ottawa Worker’s Heritage Centre beginning in 2004. This Victorian-style workers’ house itself is an important part of Vanier – both for its architecture, and its history. Built by Nathaniel Gamman between 1874-1875, the house is celebrated for its mansard roof, wood siding and decorative wood features. Dating back to the founding of Janeville, the house also reflects the development of a working class community along Montreal Road – part of Vanier’s early evolution.
Preserving this heritage, while becoming artist studio space, the house is about to link to another thread in Vanier’s evolution. The property was re-zoned in 2011 to allow for the City’s creation of an artist’s facility – and will become the newest of three locations for the City’s Artist Studio Program (ASP), providing private studios for individual artists. One short-term studio space will be available for use by First Nations, Inuit and Métis artists (up to two six-month occupancies per year), while three long-term studio spaces will become available for three-year studio rental agreements. With possible exhibition space and an annual open house for the public, the space will also create new opportunities to engage with one another. Artists, to be selected through a Call for Artists (closing November 23) and decided by a peer jury process, are expected to notified in late December. Soon after, the artists themselves will fill these -- Vanier's newest -- spaces for culture.
(Mike Bulthuis)
