Current is a new series of public art activations presented by The New Gallery (TNG), transforming the Bow River pathway into a flowing corridor of creativity. Connecting Calgary’s cultural landmarks and natural landscapes, these activations merge art, nature, and community through installation, performance, and interactive projects. It invites audiences to experience the city through the rhythm of the river and the energy of downtown life.
Current brings together the works and creative processes of Calgary artists through installation, performance and socially engaged practice. At times ecological, social and deeply rooted in process, Current invites artists to slow down and work directly within the liminal space of the river’s edge, the histories it holds, its riparian habitat, transition to the urban environment, and the material relations both carried and deposited.
Artist participation is site-specific, and interventions are simultaneously temporary, time-based and socially engaged. Current merges a formal outdoor exhibition program with musical and movement-based performance, installation, sound, participatory workshops and facilitated interdisciplinary tours.
Presented by The New Gallery and supported by RISEUp Calgary, Current runs through July 6 – 30th, 2026.
Current works with these concepts at the river’s edge in Moh’kins’tsis, Wîchîspa, Guts’ists’i and Calgary, a place of continued generational significance to the Nations of the Blackfoot Confederacy (the Siksika, the Piikani, and the Kainai), the Stoney Nakoda (the Chiniki, Bearspaw, and the Goodstoney), the Tsuu’tina First Nation and the Métis Nation within Alberta (Districts 5 and 6).