Okanagan Artists Alternative Association (Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art)

We seek to foster a Centre, a community and art practices that are:

- Engaged
Art is produced, consumed and interpreted within a social context and has a vital social and cultural role. We seek to foster art/new media practices that are engaged in contemporary social issues of importance to our community, and, in particular, that challenge normative constructions in regard to art, identity and value.

- Experimental
We value experimental forms of art production and exhibition, and we seek to cultivate hybrid modes of expression with the goal of fostering a dynamic exchange between artist, art and audience.

- Collaborative
We value connection and exchange. We seek to transcend boundaries between artistic and intellectual disciplines by bringing together a diverse range of cultural workers. Further, we seek to integrate our work in our community by fostering formal and informal collaborations with other arts, education, non-profit and social justice organizations.

We envision our artist run-centre as a welcoming site for radical art-making and community-building. We have two primary goals:

- First, we seek to provide support and resources to emerging and alternative artists in the Okanagan region.
- Second, we seek to inspire our members, as well as the broader community, by showcasing local, national and international work that is engaged in its social context and that disturbs and transcends dominant constructions of art, identity and value.

We recognize that our work takes place within a context, and so we seek to engage with our history and our community, and particularly our presence in unceded Syilx territory. We are a collaborative and community-building centre that develops relationships to share knowledge and ideas.