The Hatch Art Gallery has settled into its new home in the new SUB and is marking the occasion with an exhibit on UBC’s past student spaces that promises to trigger a feeling of nostalgia in even the newest of Thunderbirds.
The Hatch Commissioner Gillian Anselmo believes the exhibit is “a good way to position all the student unions buildings within the new SUB and integrate both history and the future” of our school. Lauding the Hatch as “a new, bright space with lots of natural light” that is more accessible than it was the in old SUB, Anselmo is excited for students to visit the art gallery and to appreciate how our common spaces have been shaped by the very students occupying them.
Titled Relocating Space: Student Union Buildings, 75 years in the Making, the art gallery’s premier exhibit features photos from the university’s archives depicting student life and spaces from 1939 to the present, the idea for which is accredited to Michael Kingsmill, one of the head architects of the new SUB.
Curated by Alexandra Trim, she describes the exhibit as “a chronological archive, starting with a timeline of Brock Hall from its conception to the construction of the old SUB … all the way up to the construction of the new SUB.” The prints hanging on the fresh white walls of the Hatch tell a story of concerts held in the main foyer of Brock Hall, of a Miss UBC pageant whose contestants were drawn from the different faculties and lined up outside its front doors, and the 1954 fire that burnt down the building’s entire second-story. Next, you will see blueprints for the 1968 construction of the old SUB, the bowling alley and video arcade that resided in the basement, and the old-timey diner called Lickety Split that was a student favourite for burgers and milkshakes.
For Trim, the most important aspect of this exhibit is the concentration on student life, which she believes is a great way to open the gallery and celebrate UBC’s newest student space.
This exhibit will be open to the public from September 1-18. Students interested in volunteering at the Hatch are encouraged to email Gillian Anselmo at sacart@ams.ubc.ca.
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