Wide open prairie spaces, big skies and big trucks, boomtowns, inclement weather, settler backgrounds, geographic isolation, rapid change, historical enslavement by modernist and formalist rules of art making. These, among others, are shared features of cities in Alberta and Saskatchewan yet are not enough to have created a symbiotic and cooperative awareness. Creators in Edmonton are not fully connected with what is going on in the neighbouring province, and younger artists in Saskatchewan have been curiously absent from exhibitions in Edmonton.

This is an exhibition about building bridges between cities with similar strengths and challenges. The art and creative communities in our provinces share a distinct lack of visibility within national and international discussions about contemporary art, and an insularity that can nurture both spectacular growth and destructive rot.

With 306’ers we have chosen seven Saskatchewan based artists currently working in sculpture, textiles, drawing, film, photography and painting. These are only some of the very talented artists we could have shown, and are a group that have shown widely across Canada and internationally, yet rarely if ever in Edmonton. These are artists who have chosen to live and create in a smaller city and are not content to confine their careers to that centre.

What could be accomplished by working in concert with other thriving art communities? What do we have in common and what has worked elsewhere to build visibility and viability within the creative community? What can we learn from our neighbours and what could we build together?