Latitude 53, Artist Civil Service
SITE #: Latitude 53 Gallery
10130 100 St NW, Edmonton, AB T5J 0N8
Nicholas Hertz
Artist Civil Service
EXHIBIT DATES: May 1 - June 27, 2026
Monday: Closed
Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday: 12pm - 5pm
Thursday: 12pm - 5pm
Friday: 12pm - 5pm
Saturday: 12pm - 5pm
Sunday: Closed
Artist Civil Service is an experimental program that supported four Edmonton-based visual artists working part-time in civil service roles and part-time on their artistic practices over a four-month period. Organized by Latitude 53 and artist Zachary Ayotte, this initiative explores alternative funding models for artists while simultaneously investing in the civic infrastructure that sustains communities.
As a part of the program, artists were embedded in volunteer and self-directed community service projects—including health care, infrastructure, and senior care—to develop their creative work and their connections to the city's civic life. The project culminates with a public presentation sharing the participating artists’ work, reflections, and insights into how this model impacted the artists’ practices and how it might evolve and scale within Edmonton and beyond.
VIRTUAL DISCUSSION
June 27, at 1pm - 3pm
On June 27th from 1pm to 3pm, Zachary Ayotte will be in conversation with Gendai Collective about their work around alternative art economies and how arts work is a core investment in our civic structures. Finding parallels between their work and Artist Civil Service, the conversation will tease apart the importance of structural critique and collective change through artistic practice.
Gendai is a collective based in Tkaronto/Toronto. Throughout its twenty-five-year history, Gendai has supported experimental curatorial and organizational practices, whilst creating space for East Asian artists and artists of colour. As Gendai’s newest stewards, Marsya Maharani and Petrina Ng are dedicated to building a more equitable art sector through collective research with BIPOC artists and arts workers. Using gossip as a methodology to trace the contours of institutional power, Gendai builds relationships with emerging and mid-career arts practitioners of colour to learn about current workplace dynamics in the sector. By offering peer mentorship and access to Gendai’s platform, resources, and network, they invite collaborators to support each other in pursuing non-institutional futures and imagine “off-ramps” from the linear expressway of traditional, capitalist, and institutional career progression in the arts. Gendai also participates in Guidance Council, a bi-monthly casual drop-in organized by Alexandra Hong and Peter Rahul for racialized arts workers to share stories and solicit advice from each other. Gendai has published their research in the Gossip issue of C Magazine, titled “We Should Talk: Obvious Truths About Working in the Arts.”
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Nicholas Hertz is a queer artist and researcher based in amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton) whose work explores the slipperiness of perception. Working across print, photography, and installation, they alter source images to construct a visual language that reveals its own making. Hertz earned their Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Alberta in 2019, where they received the Livia Stoyke Foundation BFA Best of Show Award and the Alumni Award. Their practice has been exhibited both locally and internationally, including the recent exhibition A mirror with no reflection at the Art Gallery of St. Albert. Their research-driven practice has been supported by multiple residencies, including the Emerging Artist in Residence at SNAP and the Love Lab at the Art Gallery of Mississauga (sponsored by Panasonic).
Ken Khoo is a self-taught artist. Without a structured art education, he looked to old world masters and golden age illustrators, whose works demonstrate the vital foundational lessons earned through long years drawing from life. His practice leans on that discipline of direct observational drawing, with a particular focus on people.
Amy Leigh (she/her) is a queer, disabled, settler of Scottish and Irish descent who graciously resides in amiskwaciywâskahikan via tkaronto. She is a maker, agitator, and arts administrator whose creative praxis centers on community and capacity building through printmaking, papermaking, and textile-based epistolary research-creation. From 2017 to 2020, Amy curated The Zine Machine Project—a roaming gold vending machine that distributes small zines. Amy holds a Diploma in Arts & Cultural Management from MacEwan University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking from the University of Alberta, and yes, she would like to pet your dog.
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Zachary Ayotte is an artist, writer, and editor based in Edmonton, AB/Treaty 6 territory. His work is grounded in publication projects, including I Wish U Were Here, Lines, and Notes on Digging A Hole. He is the co-editor of COI, a Prairie-centric publication about arts and culture, which he co-founded with Christina Battle. His writing has appeared in regional and national publications, including Public Parking, The Walrus, and Canadian Art.