Part of the current Asterisms: Waterways exhibition on now at SAAG's Acadia location on 3rd Avenue South. (Image Credit: Dave Lueneberg | LNN)

By Dave Lueneberg

Arts & Culture

SAAG opens new temporary office, gallery space in Acadia Block downtown

Sep 24, 2026 | 8:57 PM

Upgrades to the Southern Alberta Art Gallery in Lethbridge are underway, and with that a change in location for staff working at the facility.

“So, for the time during our capital project renovation, we’ve moved just across the street to the Acadia Block,” explains gallery curator Adam Whitford.

“Our new address is 616 3rd Avenue South, so if you’re used to coming to the old building, you just have to walk across the street. We’re right beside Well Vitality (Health Clinic) and Whitby’s Diner. So, we’re still right downtown.”

Whitford says the Acadia Block storefront will be SAAG’s main hub for the duration, but they’ve also decided to branch out in the community with exhibit space in other parts of the city.

That includes a photographic collage, Detain, by Don Gill, which is currently displayed on the walls of the Lethbridge Trade & Convention Centre.

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“This will be a place (Acadia) where people can always come to experience exhibitions that they would usually see at SAAG. So, we’re always going to have quarterly exhibitions coming through, switching every couple of months.”

The new location was christened last week with the opening of the third in a four-part series entitled Asterisms, in recognition of the gallery’s golden anniversary in 2026.

“For this 50th anniversary, this was a project I developed. The name, Asterisms, is a kind of constellation…an informal constellation like Orion’s Belt or the Big Dipper. The connection with that is not thinking of the gallery as a building, because we’ve moved off-site and we’re undergoing renovations for this year, but thinking of it as a network of stars or a network of relationships,” in reference to the ‘satellite’ gallery locations around town.

The latest installment, by Rachel Chaisson and Rita McKeough, is Waterways combining electronic media, sound, video, and interactive sculptures.

Asterisms: Waterways runs until November 14.

by Dave Lueneberg

SAAG opens new temporary office, gallery space in Acadia Block downtown

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