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Incorporated in 1995, the Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario (GNO) was Ontario’s first francophone artist-run centre. The GNO embodies a vision that’s open to all practices in contemporary art, with a particular interest in site-specific creation, installation art, and performance. Rooted in Sudbury, where the centre has had a downtown exhibition space since 1996, the GNO has a yearly program of contemporary art exhibitions and coordinates a number of visual art events that bring together larger groups of artists. While putting together yearly programs of visual art exhibitions in its gallery space (approximately 7 exhibitions per year), the GNO also has a tradition of organizing events in non-traditional spaces. Over the years, the GNO came to organize larger projects of provincial and national scope by collaborating with other artist-run centres from across the country. In 2008, the GNO held the firs Fair of Alternative Art in Sudbury (FAAS). The project brought over 20 visual artists to Sudbury. Each artist created an art installation in the rooms over the Townehouse tavern. An immediate success, the FAAS became a biannual event organized by the GNO with the collaboration of other artist-run centres. Over the years, the FAAS has been held in different public spaces in downtown Sudbury: the Townehouse tavern (2008), the Via Rail train station (2010), Market Square (2012), the Rainbow Centre shopping mall (2014), and the Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague elementary school (2018). The GNO moved into Sudbury’s new Place des Arts in 2022.

This application is for “Haszard”, the 8th Edition of the Sudbury Alternative Art Fair (SAAF), taking place May 12 to 16, 2026 on Larch Street in downtown Sudbury. This biennial festival transforms underutilized urban infrastructure into temporary creative environments where contemporary art interacts directly with public space. Programming includes: (1) Site-specific installations: approximately thirty artistic projects presented throughout the festival, including around fifteen temporary installations integrated into streets, storefronts, and public spaces, transforming the downtown environment into an interactive artistic landscape; (2) Live performances: a series of scheduled and spontaneous performances, sound works, and media interventions presented throughout the four-day event; (3) Community workshops: participatory workshops, artist talks, and public lectures held before and during the festival, encouraging co-creation, cultural dialogue, and engagement between artists and the public; and (4) Guided tours: organized tours and a structured art route along Larch Street designed to guide visitors between installations, performances, and surrounding local businesses, encouraging circulation and increased activity within the downtown core.