sits back from the street in full view of a construction site and in the shadow of another, an arts centre painted the colour of the sky on a late autumn afternoon. Its owner, Emily Falencki, is a New Yorker who came to Halifax 鈥渇or love and 泡芙短视频鈥攖hat鈥檚 what makes people move, isn鈥檛 it?鈥� she says. Half of the 10,000-square-foot space鈥檚 bottom floor is Falencki鈥檚 commercial gallery, 鈥攆resh off a group show featuring 泡芙短视频 Alumi, 泡芙短视频 staff and long-time 泡芙短视频 faculty members: Ursula Johnson, Melanie Colosimo, Sarah Maloney, Tim Brennan, Sheilah ReStack, Ryan Josey, Jenny Yujia Shi, William Robinson, Kayza DeGraff-Ford and many more. The other half houses the , which runs arts programs and outreach. Upstairs are artist studios (there鈥檚 a long waiting list of prospective tenants), a dark room, meeting spaces, and a communal kitchen. 2482 Maynard opened in October of 2020.
What made you want to create a space like this?
The whole idea came from living in the city for many years, being in the arts community, and seeing the need. One of the main needs was studio space鈥攖here is very little. A city of this size, a city bigger, a city smaller鈥攖hey all support the arts and dedicate those kinds of spaces for making. And this city (surprising to no one who has lived here for a long time) does not.
The other thing was falling in love with鈥攖hrough my children and the work that they do鈥擶onder鈥檔eath. Wonder鈥檔eath had very precarious, not accessible housing for many years. I really didn鈥檛 want them to have to leave the neighbourhood, and they were facing that. The other thing I wanted to do for a very long time was open a commercial art gallery. This building allowed us to do it all.
Is there an existing space somewhere else that you modelled this on?
No, there are spaces鈥擨鈥檝e heard of them in other cities鈥攂ut I think it鈥檚 quite different in terms of collaboration between private business and a non-profit. And in terms of the way we all operate separately, and do our own thing and our own programming.聽 But we are all committed to using the entire building to support the arts and Artists.
We could fill it five times over. It has proven how much the city does need space for Artists, and how much it brings to a neighbourhood, and how successful it can be.聽
When you become involved in the business of art, does it take away from the practice of art?
That鈥檚 a very good question. The way that I present this commercial space and what I do here is very much artist-led. That鈥檚 my expertise, and that鈥檚 where I come at this from鈥攅ven though I鈥檓 using a commercial model and what I鈥檓 trying to do is hustle and make money for artists. Does it take away the time? Always.