The University of Alberta will be home to a new 5,000-square-foot gallery inside the Telus Centre, with an opening exhibition planned for early 2027.
With 30 unique registered collections and millions of artifacts stored around the University of Alberta — some displayed in hallways or small exhibits, with the vast majority out of public view — vice-provost and chief librarian Dale Askey is excited to be involved in the creation of a state-of-the-art gallery on a busy corner on North Campus, something the university community has been interested in for decades.
The new gallery and its programming will be funded primarily through support from donors.
“We're unusual among Canadian universities for having such rich and significant collections and almost nowhere to show them to people,” explains Askey. U of A’s unique collections range from art to paleontology to rare books, textiles, meteorites and classical antiquities. While these remarkable collections have fueled teaching, research and discovery for years, without a central exhibition space, they have not always been easy to access.
Building a new gallery
Now, design is underway for a new 5,000-square-foot gallery inside the Telus Centre to showcase the many extraordinary U of A collections, including the world-renowned Mactaggart collection of East Asian art. There will be no admission fee, and it will be open to everyone.
A gallery of this magnitude has the potential to welcome and attract top researchers, curators and collaborators from around the world. “I think it's going to be really transformative for people,” says Askey, who envisions it as a gathering space that brings people to the university where they will be engaged, enlightened and inspired by interactive learning experiences, workshops, lectures and events that connect campus and community.
There are plans to support student success by incorporating the exhibits into curricula and offering experiential learning opportunities for learners interested in careers that focus on preserving and promoting cultural and natural heritage. This can help students develop skills such as curating, researching or planning exhibits.
Current connections with local K-12 school groups will continue, but more space will lend itself to more opportunities, such as summer camps or sporting events. The gallery will serve as a way to foster a sense of connection and belonging with future students. “I think that’s a key piece,” explains Askey. “When you want to recruit students from your local community, they need to have experiences where they see the U of A as a place that’s welcoming, where they’ve had a positive experience.”
The gallery will seek Category A designation, meaning it has the professional capacity and facilities to properly care for and preserve cultural property of outstanding significance for the long term. This includes meeting environmental, security and other operational criteria that define a high-standard museum facility. As such, it will also be able to showcase objects borrowed from major museums and galleries.
Askey is leading a small expert team from Library + Museums to work with the architects and the construction management firm on the design process and the demolition and construction phases. As needed, they consult with others in the portfolio, such as specialists from Bruce Peel Special Collections and Archives. “It’s a pretty light and agile group,” says Askey, who expects the demolition/construction process to start in July 2025.
Looking to the future
The fact that this project is made possible by donors demonstrates the broad support for a gallery to host the U of A’s collections. “Our collections will allow us to do really grand things, but we're always going to need to seek those sponsorships, those philanthropic gifts that will allow us to work at that level,” says Askey.
While the new gallery aligns with U of A's strategic goals around student success, accessibility and community engagement, it goes further than that. It means that there is an unlimited number of stories to tell. “There is an obligation for collecting institutions and museums. They exist in our world to preserve interesting objects, to preserve our cultural history, to preserve our natural history, to preserve all of these things," says Askey.
“I feel like we’re doing something really good that people will be happy about. And that's a really nice thing to help bring into the world.”