Spring has sprung and much like the dizzying pace of change these days, our board and staff are thrilled to announce that SPACE is reopening very soon.
Starting on May 20th at the link here, you will be able to sign up for 25 minute appointments to visit the galleries on Thursdays & Fridays from 2-6pm and on Saturdays from 12-4pm. We can’t wait for people to see Andrew Scripter’s (Wing Club Press) installation Instruction Manual for Giant Tents that turned our sweet empty venue into a utopian set of questions about architecture and place. Meanwhile, we are thrilled and proud to finally be opening the long-postponed thematic exhibition, Punctures, organized by 2017 Warhol Foundation Curatorial Fellow, Ekrem Serdar who originally presented the work at Buffalo NY’s Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center in winter 2019/2020. We hope to see you here!
But in order to have a successful spring and summer getting fully back on site, we need you to help chip in to fix the roof of our office. For years our roof over the back offices has been slowly leaking, culminating in many recent days with blue recycling bins collecting rainwater around us as we work on programming, direct artist support, and cultural partnerships. We’ve been lucky to have had flexible schedules and a hybrid work environment during this pandemic, but we are truly looking forward to getting back in the office and working together.
The time for these critical roof repairs is now, along with repair work to our back deck, and the fire escape for our studio artists and residency tenants. Your help is needed to raise at least $30,000 in the next month to get the building in necessary shape for reopening. We hope to make these necessary improvements to keep us on track for hosting events indoors by this fall!
Many years of deferred maintenance are taking its toll and the need for SPACE to grow up and tend to our home has become a major priority of our staff and board. SPACE is grateful for the hard-won grant, state, and federal funding we have secured during our COVID-19 closure, but we are committed to those funds supporting ongoing artist emergency relief, programming opportunities, residencies, and new commissions.
We need the support of you, our members and dedicated donors, in order to protect our landmark building and the community of working artists it supports. We humbly acknowledge this pandemic has been a wedge in the wealth inequality in this country, and we appreciate your help at any level you are comfortable.
We also eagerly accept donations of audio/visual gear equipment (flat screen TVs and projectors of any size/type encouraged), computers and office equipment in good shape, and stocks, to boot. Contact director@space538.org if you have any questions about unusual or alternative forms of giving. Thank you.
With gratitude,
SPACE Staff
SPACE’s board and staff wish to thank the foundational and government partners who provided unrestricted and core program operating support to keep SPACE open during our closure:
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
The State of Maine
Via | Wagner Art Incubator Fund
The Andrew Mellon Foundation & NEFA Regional Arts Resilience Fund
The Crewe Foundation
The Onion Foundation
Sam L. Cohen Foundation
Moser Family Foundation
Kirby Family Foundation
Ann H. Symington Foundation
The Maine Arts Commission
The Maine Music Relief Grant funders
& the additional private foundations, major donors, and SPACE members who kept the lights on with us.
