about

ARCHIVO is an archival digital platform that allows for accessibility, searchability, and discoverability of the Latin American diaspora of visual artists in Canada. It is a digital archive of Latin American artists, Indigenous artists from the Latin American region, Latin-Caribbean artists, and those who identify as Latinx artists. ARCHIVO intends to digitally save, connect, and reflect on the vital work this diaspora has provided and contributed to and for Canada’s collective memory. We hope this initiative will situate this diaspora into Canadian art history.  

Sur Gallery opened its doors in 2015, disseminating and articulating discourses about Latin American and Latinx contemporary artistic practices. In an effort to expand its mandate, Sur Gallery began the archival project in October, 2022. ARCHIVO consists of researching, designing, and archiving, and is led by Researcher/Archivist Luz Sierra and Director/Curator Tamara Toledo.

This digital repository is dedicated to all the artists who with persistence and creativity continue to share their visions and work despite systemic erasure.

This is an ongoing project and we will continue to accept submissions to expand ARCHIVO. Please send us your profile or an update of your artistic practice to archives@surgallery.ca

ARCHIVO eligibility:

1.    Be a professional emerging, mid-career or established visualartist who has been active for a minimum of 5 consecutive years.

  • Established: artists with an extensive body of work and with a history of national and international exhibitions and/or those who have achieved a wide degree of recognition. 
  • Mid-career: artists whose professional careers have passed the early stages, who have produced a reasonable body of work and who have attained a fair degree of public exposure. 
  • Emerging: artists in the early years of their professional careers who have a small exhibition record. 

2.    Be a Canadian citizen, hold a permanent resident of Canada, or have anapplication pending for permanent resident status.

3. Visual artists who identify as Latinx or LatinAmerican and who have had an upbringing in Latin America or in the diasporawith Latin American parents.

access and use policy

Sur Gallery agrees that ARCHIVO's compilation of data reason is for nonprofit educational purposes. Anyone can access the compiled index of visual artists' names, metadata and electronicrecords found in ARCHIVO on the Sur Virtual website. Every visual artist published in ARCHIVO has been informed about their profile creation in the database and online publication.  

ARCHIVO's visual artist database is under Fair Use. 

Copyright disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976: Allowance is made for “Fair Use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news report, teaching, scholarship, and research. 

Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favour of fair use. 

All rights and credits go directly to their rightful owners. No copyright infringement intended.

Anyone wishing to use the metadata in a commercialcontext (or to transform or create derivative works must contact the originalcontent creator for permission, this may include ARCHIVO, the depositors andall third parties.

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