About

History & Milestones

Gallery 1265 was founded by three students, Amy Barnes, Laura Mendes & Heather Kanabe, in 2004. Frustrated with the lack of student exhibition space on campus, Amy, Laura and Heather successfully petitioned and rallied for the creation of a student gallery. When the professional gallery moved to a new home in the Academic Resource Centre, its old location in the Meeting Place became Gallery 1265. Despite facing challenges over the years, Gallery 1265 continues to grow and offer young arts managers and artists a voice and valuable professional experience.

2021 and 2022 saw many initiatives by Gallery 1265 to venture outside of its gallery space. Director Polen Light and his team—Man Shek Au, Arthur Dennyson Hamdani, Laira Macapagal & Joanna de Villa—introduced the first ever Public Art series which featured public art installations throughout the UTSC campus. In the same year, the first issue of Gallery 1265’s in-house publication, The Valley, was published. In the summer of 2022, Gallery 1265 held its first exhibition outside of the gallery in the UTSC library.

In 2023, Gallery 1265 organized the first ever Acorn Tri-Campus Art Festival (ATAF) in partnership with art-focused student groups across all three University of Toronto campuses. The week-long festival featured a diverse lineup of student art exhibitions, short film screenings, theatre plays and art workshops.