44 Gaukel has been BUMPING in 2023! With record rental numbers and an influx of new tenants, the building has been buzzing this past year. 

We started off January by welcoming photographer Bangishimo as the City of Kitchener’s 2022-2023 Artist in Residence into the building. Bangishimo is an IndigiQueer Anishinaabe originally from Couchiching First Nation located on Treaty #3 territory. Bangishimo is a community organizer, educator, and advocate. Bangishimo’s project for their residency, The Medicines We Carry, includes a series of large-scale portraits that engage the local Indigenous, racialized, and Black communities in their production. They held several photoshoots and open houses throughout the year and it was a pleasure to have them as a part of the 44 Gaukel family.

February was a busy month with GRACe’s Hearts, Arts & Healing exhibition; this showcase explored how artists express trauma and the healing power of artistic practice. The exhibition included works from local artists Esther Slevinsky, Jim Blomfield, Michael ManChoi Chow, Roshan James, Roslyn Ramsay, and 44 Gaukel tenants Catherine Mellinger, Claire Donnison. 

The Flex Space was home to the first of many 2023 queer markets in February hosted by tenant The Midnight Raven, and hundreds came through the door for the Valentine’s Gay Market. We also welcomed Plantal Support to the building, a maker/designer for plant accessories and art in February.

March kicked off with an exciting announcement coming out of the Just Ideas’ Gaukel studio – Been Himma by Dom Vallie, a song 44G tenants Just Ideas had produced was nominated for a Juno award! The Just Ideas duo has been producing some incredible tracks from their Gaukel studio and we are sure to see big things from them in 2024 as well. 

44 Gaukel was home to another GRACe show in March for the Re-Vision Exhibition where artists were challenged to reimagine, recreate and repurpose while documenting those transformative artistic processes. 

Midtown Radio’s On The Scene show did a LIVE recording at Gaukel in March, chatting about the building programs, and interviewing some of the artists from the Re-Vision Exhibition.

In April, fashion designer Zane Fraser joined the building and throughout the year has released some incredibly cool pieces, lookbooks, and videos. Visiting from all over Ontario, 44 Gaukel hosted Ontario’s Big City Mayors with Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic in April for a tour around the space. After learning what 44 Gaukel is about, and taking in some of the art around the building, the mayors had a blast posing like rockstars in the Good Co. Productions rehearsal space!

Artshine held the Youn@rt exhibition in our O- in May, showcasing art created by talented artists from ages 12 to 18 that brought tons of families from the Waterloo Region to the building to see the young prodigies’ work. 

The Walk-In Recording Studio joined our building and the sweet beats coming from their studio have been non-stop all year! 

Our community rentals were at a peak in May with a series of fabulous workshops hosted over the Mother’s Day Weekend. Folks have gathered in the Community Room to learn how to make flower arrangements from Ophelia Gardenia, decorate cookies from Kukkiville, or deserts with Q’s Cakes throughout the year, and we can’t wait to see what kind of workshops are hosted in our space in the future. 

Celebrating Pride Month at Gaukel, The Midnight Raven’s June market Queer and Here was an absolute blast – another great event continues to make 44 Gaukel as a queer safe space in KW. 

44 Gaukel was also host to events from the Open Ears Festival in June; the OEF’s Hear Here Workshops were held in our Rehearsal Space and featured harpist Lori Gemmell and percussionist Erin Donovan.

We were also thrilled to welcome Right Brained into the building, a cutting-edge film/media designer. 

June was a particularly special month at 44 Gaukel as the City of Kitchener launched an incredible FREE outdoor event space right outside of 44 Gaukel and we haven’t been able to stop talking about it all year! The Gaukel Block has seen a wide variety of events throughout 2023, but some of our favourites include the IAM Kitchener Indigenous Art Market, White Tiger Vintage’s Way Cool Vintage Market, KW Famous’s Afro Vibes, and Dog Friendly KW’s Howloween Pooch Party. Our tenants have taken full advantage of this awesome new space all year and were vendors, hosts, and performers for a number of the Gaukel Block bashes.

Tenants were busy with community engagement over the summer holding workshops, markets, and concerts all over the region. Good Co. Productions, partnering with the City of Kitchener’s Downtown team, held concerts in Vogelsangreen, the Kitchener Market, Catana Studios, Marlowe General, Hong Kong Plaza, and of course Gaukel Block. Andy Wright hosted some photography workshops in the Community Room, Yulia Balabanova hosted an Art Camp in the Flex Space throughout the summer months, and Artshine held some fun creative workshops in their studio.

Gaukel became home to a number of phenomenal new tenants during this time: Simrit Khabra, a hyper-stylish fashion designer focused on plus-sized designs joined in July, Nikolina Kupcevic joined us in August and has been making some exceedingly cool art in her studio since, and Alice Plummer, talented visual artist moved into the Shared Studio in September.

As the heat of the summer started to fade, in September Gaukel was able to host some of the IMPACT 23 Festival by MT Space, which brought performers from all over the world through our doors.

Spooky season is where we shone, as our 44 Gaukel tenants hosted tons of exciting eerie events in October! The Beasting Bash kicked off the month with a celebration of monster art, and dreadful drawings. The Midnight Raven’s The Future is Crystal Queer Market followed by their Witch and Wellness Market at Gaukel Block brought in costumed folks from around the region to buy ghostly wares and occult art.

As winter approached the final GRACe exhibition of the year animated the hallways of 44 Gaukel with the ART WALK featuring art from GRACe members and 44 Gaukel tenant displays. Two fantastic creators joined our building in November: Jessie Clayman – a maker who designs and builds wands, charms, potions, hats, and other witchy accouterments , and Quill Christie-Peters – an Anishinaabeg artist and educator Treaty #3 in Northwestern Ontario and is working on a creative project that explores pleasure and joy in the context of the intergenerational impacts of residential schools.

The holiday season was busy as usual for our tenants, as My Pet Skeleton hosted the annual Krampuskindl or ‘Christkinl’s ugly brother’, and The Midnight Raven held the Happy Holigays Market in the Flex Space. We welcomed musician Joshua Pascua to the building in December and are sure to hear sweet tunes coming from his studio in the new year. 

The 44G family got together one last time before the end of the year for a cozy holiday party: enjoyed festive treats, watched a classic holiday movie, recapped the year, and wished each other an even greater 2024.

We would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who made 2023 so special, and to the art supporters in the Waterloo Region for keeping creative spaces alive. There are already so many exciting things lined up for 44 Gaukel in 2024, and we can’t wait to share them with you!