It was the summer of 2021, and Toronto was still in pandemic mode, weathering a lockdown that would become the longest of its kind. Erin Storus was living in the Annex that year, renting an apartment in a shared house on Markham Street. She was unemployed and unsure about the future, and yet, Storus felt lucky. She had something most downtown residents pined for: her own private patch of green space. “We had this big beautiful backyard that was a total mess,” says Storus, and amid the weeds and ankle-high grass, she saw potential.

For a single day that July, Storus transformed her urban oasis into an outdoor exhibition called Garden Variety. She had zero past experience as a curator. She didn’t even know the artists. But when she pitched her idea, everyone said yes.

When exhibition day came, Storus strung gelatin lampshades by Shannon Garden-Smith in the trees, witchy lanterns which glowed amber as the afternoon sun faded to dusk. (Last year, Garden-Smith’s monumental floor installation for Nuit Blanche was among the standout works of the night.) On the weather-beaten fence, she hung prints by Alison Postma, an award-winning artist and furniture designer whose work had previously shown as part of the Contact Photography Festival. And SK Maston, a local artist who would later exhibit at the Bonavista Biennale, literally dug her contributions into the lawn, creating small ponds around the yard. These glistening portals revealed ghostly paintings of enormous moths. 

“The idea was kind of a community barbecue, but instead of, you know, hot dogs and hamburgers and corn, it’s art,” says Storus. By her estimate, around 200 people saw the show that day — turning up because they got a tip from a pal, or maybe saw the scene from their window next door. “It ended up being the best thing I’ve ever done,” says Storus of the show, and by the end of that summer, she’d hosted two more.

Since Garden Variety’s inaugural year, Storus has both finished a masters degree and launched a career as a professional curator, doing exhibitions for the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto and the Plumb among other venues, and this July, she’ll revive her project in a new location near Dundas and Gladstone. (She’s since moved out of the place on Markham Street.) Like past editions, each Garden Variety show will be a one-day event, funded by Storus and reliant on volunteers to bring it to life. The first exhibition of the season is scheduled for July 5, and will feature site-specific work by the artists Leeay Aikawa, Danan Lake, Joy Wong, Derek Liddington, Emma Welch and Jaime McCuaig. 

The experience of discovering contemporary art in somebody’s backyard can conjure a feeling of magic and novelty, but there’s a long tradition of upstart artists and curators transforming their homes into ad-hoc exhibition space. Projects of this scrappy nature are often fleeting, evolving into something bigger or more formal. Others eventually run their course when the passion and/or savings run down. Still, these venues are everywhere in Canada, and some believe their number will only increase as the cost of living continues to climb.

When your apartment doubles as an art gallery

Saving on rent isn’t the only reason the model persists, though according to artist and curator Marie Ségolène Brault, founder of Espace Maurice, it’s definitely a major factor. “Montreal is no longer as affordable as it was even, like, 10 years ago. So if young people want to show their work, they’re going to have to get creative,” she says. 

That’s exactly what Brault did in 2021, when she opened Espace Maurice, a gallery she runs out of her loft apartment in the city’s Gay Village. “I knew right away when I moved in that I wanted to do this here,” says Brault. The layout of the space is in an L-shape, she explains, with room for exhibitions near the entrance. “If you turn the corner, then it’s my home.” Since launching, Brault estimates she’s organized more than 20 exhibitions for her gallery, paying most of the operating costs herself. (She affords it by working in the film industry as a props buyer.) 

Four years into the endeavour, Brault has become increasingly interested in curating for venues that are not her living room, but she hasn’t tired of hosting an open house every weekend. There’s a big dining table in the centre of her apartment, she says, and sometimes she’ll find herself sitting there with a stranger, sharing a quiet moment. “It’s very, I don’t know — very poetic,” she says. Experiences like that have been a bonus, it seems. At the beginning, Brault was motivated by more practical concerns. Like Storus at Garden Variety, she was at the beginning of her career as a curator. And with job opportunities looking scarce, she created her own, inspired by the apartment galleries she’d visited while studying in Chicago.

A gallery where the next-door neighbours are regulars

Danica Pinteric, a Toronto-based writer and curator, had a similarly formative experience. While studying in Montreal, visits to Vie d’ange, a project space in an old autobody shop, ignited her imagination. (The space, which was founded by curators Eli Kerr and Daphné Boxer, closed in 2019.) “Just kind of going for it and not waiting for permission really inspired me,” says Pinteric, who ran her own garage gallery in Montreal (Calaboose) before moving home to Toronto. 

She launched Joys gallery there in 2022. The venue is a renovated garage (the former home of Tap Art Space), and during the warm-weather months, Joys hosts exhibitions, readings and other events — partly supported by grants and funds raised through an annual artist calendar. “If we don’t get the grant, we’ll still do [the show]. It’s just a matter of scale,” she says. And though Pinteric doesn’t live on the property — she just rents the garage — Joys has cultivated a homey feel that has a lot to do with its location. Because the gallery opens onto the alley, many of Joys’s regulars are the families next door. “I’m watching kids grow up, and they come every year to the shows and they’re a year older,” she says. “It’s kind of special to have an organic, kind of neighbourly relationship with some of the visitors.”

A live/work space like no other

Toronto artists Lisa Neighbour and Carlo Cesta are cultivating their own block-party vibe at Beauty Supply, a 170-square-foot space on the second floor of the couple’s Geary Avenue house. Neighbour and Cesta are established artists who’ve both exhibited widely, and they describe themselves as “pioneers on Geary.” It’s been roughly 30 years since they moved into their home, which long pre-dates the bars and restaurants that have popularized the strip.

“Carlo and I both have been involved in kind of ad hoc galleries since we were in art school,” says Neighbour, but it wasn’t until 2018 when they rechristened Cesto’s studio upstairs as Beauty Supply, opening to the public with a show by their friend Lee Goreas. Programming is sporadic, with new exhibitions held once or twice a year; a Kathleen Hearn exhibition is on the books for later this spring, they say, and visitor info will be available through the gallery’s Instagram. 

According to Neighbour, the original vision was an excuse to get the community together — to share some snacks and have a party — while creating more exhibition opportunities for locals. “For us, it doesn’t really cost that much extra money to have turned [the upstairs] into a gallery space,” says Neighbour. The only downside, they say half-jokingly, is the pressure to clean up before visitors appear. “Plus, it’s a little bit selfish, but we get to actually experience the artworks in the gallery every single day of the exhibition,” says Neighbour. “It’s wonderful.”

Creating the art world they want in condos, barns and backyards

As someone who shares the same rare privilege, Bonny Poon knows the feeling. Poon is an art dealer and the founder of Conditions, a commercial gallery she runs from a ground-floor condo near OCAD University in downtown Toronto. The unit currently boasts two rooms for exhibiting art: a high-ceilinged kitchen plus a bathroom/project space that’s been cheekily rebranded as the “Potty.” The gallery’s entrance, which is a sliding patio door, immediately reveals the site’s residential secret identity. Poon lives in the condo with her family in addition to running a second business out of the space, a fitness studio called Flow — though the room’s white-cube austerity may suggest otherwise. 

Before opening her Toronto gallery, which held its first on-site exhibition in the spring of 2024, Poon operated Conditions from a different domicile: a one-room apartment in Paris, which Artsy dubbed one of the “most important young galleries in the world” in 2019. Out in France, the work-from-home arrangement suited Poon just fine, she says, so she replicated the model upon returning to Canada. Living at the gallery spares Poon from an arduous commute and saves on rent to boot. Freedom, it seems, is the arrangement’s greatest reward — and she especially enjoys having the ability to offer genuine hospitality. “I can easily make guests dinner or a cup of tea in the kitchen,” says Poon. “There’s definitely a sense of having more agency or feeling like this is on my terms. My conditions.” 

The same “make it happen” philosophy applies at DIY spaces like Orchid Contemporary in Hamilton, a garage gallery founded in 2022 by artist and curator Adrien Crossman. “If you can run a space, then it’s one of the ways to create the art world you want without asking permission,” says Crossman, whose programming at Orchid prioritizes underrepresented practices and work by artists from marginalized communities, including queer, trans and racialized folks.

Katie Lyle and Stefan Harhay, co-founders of Project Underwing in Toronto, have been throwing art exhibitions in their backyard since 2017. Inspired by the can-do spirit of artist-run spaces, they give participants free range to create what they wish. And at 13 Cedars, a brand new project space in Rowley, N.B., artist Jay Isaac has refurbished a small barn on his home property in a bid to grow the local contemporary-art scene. “Coming from Toronto, one of the few things I miss is accessibility to contemporary art, so I decided the best thing to do is start a space,” he tells CBC Arts over email.

A gallery where you’ll find more chickens than people

Meanwhile, in rural northeastern Ontario, Alexander Rondeau is also creating the change he wants to see. In 2021, while studying remotely, Rondeau began mounting exhibitions from a plywood shed on his mom and dad’s farm in Kerns Township, Ont. The structure itself was built for pheasants and chickens, and it remains a working coop. “I don’t want to be corny, but I didn’t want to, like, gentrify it,” jokes Rondeau, and to his surprise, most artists have been comfortable — excited, even — to share space with livestock at Rondeau’s Between Pheasants Contemporary. There’s only been one bird-related snafu over the course of 20 exhibitions. A series of unframed prints proved too tempting for the pheasants, Rondeau explains. “They made little nests.”

Between Pheasants Contemporary champions under-programmed artists, and many of the shows give priority to 2SLGBTQ+ perspectives. It’s brought more contemporary art and dialogue to the region, says Rondeau, and he runs Between Pheasants in tandem with another project, Covey Bouquet, which offers support to curators interested in producing their own exhibitions in whatever “sites of possibility” they can find. Covey Bouquet’s first exhibition, which was curated by Rondeau, was held in a horse barn and featured “rural gothic” works by Ontario artists Colin W Davis (North Bay) and Dunstan Topp (Sudbury).

There are, however, some obvious drawbacks to mounting an exhibition in the countryside. Foot traffic, for one thing, is non-existent. If 20 folks come out to a show, that’s a “huge success,” says Rondeau. But on top of the in-person relationships he’s built with engaged local art-lovers, he’s found an even larger audience online.

For gallerists and patrons alike, there’s no place like home

It’s the same for La Shed, a gallery in Gabarus, N.S., a Cape Breton fishing village with fewer than 100 residents. In late 2019, Montreal gallerists André Laroche and Louis Joncas bought a seaside home in the community — auspicious timing, to be sure. When the pandemic struck, they fled Montreal. “We just thought, ‘Let’s go for a couple weeks to Cape Breton,'” says Laroche. “That two weeks ended up being six months.” And as for La Shed — which is, in form, a spruced up tool shed with an ocean view — it’s hosted exhibitions every year since then. This summer, it will have a group show devoted to emerging artists from Halifax, curated by Bijan Ramezani. 

In 2023, Laroche and Joncas’s eponymous gallery moved out of the Belgo Building and into their Montreal residence. That venture (The Apartment) has since closed, and Laroche, 65, plans to turn more of his attention to La Shed in Gabarus. Laroche, a self-described “people person,” loved the experience of running exhibitions from his home in the city. “Sometimes people would stay maybe half an hour, sometimes an hour. Just the environment creates a different dynamic.” He greets significantly fewer guests at La Shed, given its remote location. Still, the attraction manages to draw the occasional “adventurous visitor,” he says.

It might feel odd to poke around a stranger’s tool shed — or condo or chicken coop. But seeking contemporary art in unusual locations has its rewards. “It might seem really kind of coveted or secret or, you know, insider-only,” says Pinteric. “But it’s actually the opposite, in my experience.”

Storus feels the same. “Institutions, they are very intimidating,” she says. “I think there’s very few people I know who are outside of the arts that feel comfortable entering and accessing those spaces, and so I wanted to completely eliminate that barrier, you know, which is why I kind of prefaced [Garden Variety] as a community barbecue, but art.” And she has high hopes for Garden Variety’s comeback season. “My hope is that as many people as possible, from as many communities as possible, hear about this and come out.”