GUM is led by three practising artists with different but complementary backgrounds in art, design, architecture, education, writing and community projects. Together, we bring these experiences to GUM and to our shared interest in art and finding new ways for people to experience contemporary art.
Mikael Sandblom
Mikael Sandblom is a visual artist, architect and designer whose interdisciplinary background brings together art, architecture, technology, design and organizational thinking.
Mikael studied art at the Ontario College of Art and later completed an MBA at the University of Toronto and a Master of Architecture at Dalhousie University. His visual art practice examines perception, memory and the ways we construct our understanding of reality. Working across photography, digital rendering, painting and textiles, he creates layered compositions in which geometric structures interact with natural forms such as clouds and waves.
That combination of artistic practice and architectural thinking is central to Mikael’s involvement with GUM. He is interested not only in individual artworks, but in the relationships between art, space, place and experience: how an artwork changes when it appears on a trail, inside a historic church, in a storefront or alongside the everyday activity of a small town.
With Viz Saraby, Mikael created the Tidbits Meaford History Project, a multidisciplinary exploration of Meaford’s history that combines physical and digital interpretation, research, photography, video, publications and 3D reconstruction. That project helped establish an approach that continues at GUM: using creative practice to encourage people to look differently at familiar places.
Through GUM, Mikael wants to create opportunities for artists to experiment with ideas, media and environments that may not fit comfortably within conventional commercial galleries. He is particularly interested in site-specific work, interdisciplinary practice and the possibilities that arise when artists respond directly to architecture, landscape, history and community.
His intention is to help make GUM a place where serious artistic experimentation is encouraged, and where contemporary artists can take risks.
Viz Saraby
Viz Saraby is an artist, designer, educator and community arts organizer whose work is grounded in the belief that creativity and contemporary art should be accessible, participatory and connected to everyday life.
For more than two decades, Viz has taught design, helping students develop the confidence, skills and ways of thinking needed to become designers. That experience strongly informs her approach to GUM. She believes people do not need prior knowledge to engage meaningfully with contemporary art; curiosity, exposure and conversation can be enough to begin. The same principle applies to artists: emerging artists need opportunities to experiment, take risks, show work, talk about their ideas and develop their practices.
Alongside her work in education and her own art practice, Viz has extensive experience developing community-based cultural projects. With Mikael Sandblom, she created the Tidbits Meaford History Project, which uses research, photography, video, publications, plaques, walking tours, digital media and 3D reconstructions to encourage people to see Meaford and its history differently. The project received support from George Brown College, Community Foundation Grey Bruce and a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant.
Viz has also helped develop projects including Eveningfest, Art in the Wild and Art in the Pews, experimenting with ways of bringing artists and audiences together outside conventional gallery settings. These projects helped shape GUM’s central philosophy: meet people where they are.
Through GUM, Viz wants to create an environment where ambitious contemporary art can coexist with warmth, humour, participation and genuine public engagement. Her goal is not simply to attract people to exhibitions, but to build cultural confidence, create meaningful opportunities for emerging artists and contribute to a stronger contemporary arts community.
Hugh Alcock
Hugh Alcock is a practising visual artist, writer, curator and academic whose experience spans studio practice, artist-run culture, art criticism and education.
Hugh studied fine art at the Ontario College of Art, including a year of independent study in Florence, Italy. His work has been exhibited at Harbourfront, The Artist Project, Gallery 1313 and other galleries and exhibitions in Toronto. His art practice focuses primarily on trees and plant life, exploring natural environments through compositions influenced in part by the movement and dynamism of Baroque painting.
Hugh has been involved with artist collectives throughout his career and is currently a board member of Collective City, where he coordinates the Gallery Project. He also holds a PhD in the philosophy of mind and has taught at several universities, including OCAD University. His writing on art includes essays and reviews, regular contributions to Artoronto.ca, and a 2020 book on Toronto painter Rae Johnson.
This combination of artist, writer, educator and organizer gives Hugh a particularly broad perspective on what artists need in order to develop: opportunities to exhibit, but also critical conversation, professional relationships, experimentation and engagement with other artists and audiences.
At GUM, Hugh brings both an artist’s perspective and extensive knowledge of the larger contemporary art community. He shares GUM’s interest in supporting emerging and developing artists and in creating connections between artists working in different places and at different stages of their careers.
His involvement helps GUM remain locally grounded while also looking outward, connecting artists and ideas with broader contemporary art practices and networks. The intention is not to make GUM more like a conventional urban gallery, but to bring different perspectives, conversations and relationships into the distinctive artistic environment GUM is building.
Together at GUM
Together, Mikael Sandblom, Viz Saraby and Hugh Alcock bring an unusual combination of experience in visual art, architecture, design, education, philosophy, writing, criticism, community engagement and artist-run culture.
Those different perspectives shape what GUM is becoming. We understand art from the point of view of practising artists, but also as educators, designers, writers, organizers and people interested in how ideas, places and communities intersect. We have experience creating exhibitions, developing ambitious community projects, obtaining funding, teaching and mentoring, writing and thinking critically about art, and building relationships among artists and audiences.
GUM gives us an opportunity to bring those strengths together in a way that would be difficult within a more conventional gallery model. We want to create a place that takes artists and their ideas seriously while remaining curious, welcoming and willing to experiment. A place where emerging artists can take risks, established artists can try something different, audiences can ask questions, and exhibitions can extend beyond gallery walls into the landscape, architecture, history and everyday life of the community.
Our intention is not to replicate the kind of gallery that already exists elsewhere. It is to use our different experiences to build something distinctive: an artist-led contemporary arts organization where experimentation, education, conversation, community and artistic ambition reinforce one another.
GUM is ultimately the product of those intersections: different disciplines, different experiences, different people and different places coming together to create possibilities that none of them could create alone.