When Catherine Crowston goes to farmers markets or restaurants, she often gets recognized as the Art Gallery of Alberta’s executive director and chief curator. People will approach her to tell her something about an exhibition they saw. Something stuck with them that they’re still thinking about. This is where the gallery lives, not in a building on Churchill Square but in the stories and moments that stay with Edmontonians. She notices an overlap between attendees at the AGA and people who engage in community building. The gallery’s work doesn’t stop at its front doors, but extends as far as the city takes it.
After 25 years at the AGA — first as a curator, then as deputy director and now as executive director — Crowston has built the AGA into a well-run institution and a necessity for Edmonton art lovers.
A clear picture of Crowston’s leadership came in 2020. Museums and art galleries were among the first recreational spaces to open as COVID-19 restrictions started to loosen. Performing arts hubs remained restricted, but the AGA was allowed to host visitors in cohorts. The gallery opened its doors to Ballet Edmonton, members of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and others. “We became a venue to host performing arts activities to give our colleagues in the other disciplines an opportunity to keep working, producing and performing,” she says.
Since then, online art experiences have continued to be an option. And Crowston and her team have considered the tricky question, “What does the public in 2026 want or need from the gallery and museums?”
They have worked to create opportunities to exhibit emerging Albertan artists and Indigenous artists, and to host community events. The vision is rooted in Crowston’s understanding of what public access to art contributes to communities.
The AGA does not focus solely on Alberta’s art history. “That’s not all we’re here to do,” Crowston says. Instead, the AGA is here to display art as a tool of communication and community building, guiding gallery-goers to understand the world around them in different ways.
It’s meant to counter other narratives out there: “Things are sometimes not true, things are invented, things are created in AI and the media. There’s kind of a false storytelling in the world,” she says. “The whole question of truth and representation is something that we engage with.”
Crowston’s leadership has brought the AGA to international levels of recognition and collaboration, dismantling the barriers that might steer people away from galleries. “Sometimes people think museums and art galleries are precious or elitist,” she says. “I want people to know that artwork is open to interpretation. People can come in and create their own meaning. They can love something, they can hate something,” she says. Art can be transformative or just decorative, depending on who’s looking. In a world where an image’s truth can be contested, she considers it the AGA’s duty to reintroduce visual literacy and approach art with curiosity.
This article appears in the April 2026 issue of Edify
