The Khyber Building is a registered Historical Property owned by the

Halifax Regional Municipality Halifax is the capital and largest municipality of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of the 2021 Census, the municipal population was 439,819, with 348 ...

Barrington Street View southward on Barrington StreetBarrington Street is a major street in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, running from the MacKay Bridge in the North End approximately 7 km south, through Downtown Halifax to Inglis Street in the South End. Its ...

Halifax, Nova Scotia Halifax is the capital and largest municipality of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of the 2021 Census, the municipal population was 439,819, with 348,634 people in its urban area. The ...

. Until 2014, it was operated as an artist-run centre, public art gallery and social space by

Khyber Arts Society Khyber Arts Society is a not-for profit charitable organization that operates the Khyber Centre for the Arts, an artist-run centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The name “Khyber” commemorates the café owned and operated by the Nasr family in the o ...

(The Khyber Centre for the Arts), which is now located at 1880 Hollis St.

History

1588 Barrington Street, was originally erected as The Church of England Institute in 1888. It was designed by architect Henry Busch in the Victorian style with

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

features. The building was commissioned by Bishop

Hibbert Binney Hibbert Binney (12 August 1819 – 30 April 1887) was a Canadian Church of England bishop. He was the fourth Bishop of Nova Scotia from 1851 to 1887. Born in Sydney, Nova Scotia, the grandson of Hibbert Newton Binney and the son of the Rev ...

. Other buildings designed by Busch in Halifax include the Halifax Academy and the Halifax Public Gardens Bandstand. In 1994, the City of Halifax put out an RFP (Request for Proposal) for the building, but only received a few offers. Its current tenants helped form the Arts Centre Project Society in order to secure the building as an arts centre. The Arts Centre Project Society was made up: the No Money Down Cultural Society (a group of artists active in building), various individual artists (including Garry Neill Kennedy), and members from the Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia. The building was established as an art centre by City Council in 1994 and a month-to-month lease was signed. In March 1995, the

was registered as a charitable organization. Recent NSCAD grad

Kelly Mark Kelly Mark (born 1967 in Welland, Ontario) is a Canadian conceptual artist and sculptor based in Toronto. Her work explores the mundane rituals of everyday life. Art practice Mark is an artist who makes conceptual artworks across a range of me ...

ran the bar on the first floor for several years. Phil Grauer who went on to form Canada Gallery NYC served as director. Founding tenants included Chesnut Tree Theatre (Jennifer Smith) and Ultramagnetic recording studio run by Charles Austin (Superfriendz) and Kevin Lewis (Parenthesis gallery). Artists that have shown at the Khyber since then include:

Luis Jacob Luis Jacob (born 1971) is an artist, writer, curator and educator living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Life and work Jacob was born in Lima, Peru and moved to Canada with his family when he was ten. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 19 ...

, Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby,

Gillian Wearing Gillian Wearing CBE, RA (born 10 December 1963) is an English conceptual artist, one of the Young British Artists, and winner of the 1997 Turner Prize. In 2007 Wearing was elected as lifetime member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Her ...

David Askevold David Askevold (30 March 1940 – 23 January 2008) was an experimental Canadian artist who lived in Nova Scotia. Askevold studied art and anthropology at the University of Montana. In 1963, he won a Max Beckmann Scholarship to study painting for a ...

Shary Boyle Shary Boyle D.F.A. (born May 26, 1972) is a contemporary Canadian visual artist working in the mediums of sculpture, drawing, painting and performance art. She lives and works in Toronto. Early life and education Boyle was born in the Toronto s ...

Gerald Ferguson Gerald Ferguson (January 29, 1937 – October 8, 2009) was a conceptual artist and painter who lived and taught in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Born in Cincinnati he was both a Canadian and US citizen. Background After receiving his MFA from Ohio Un ...

, Alison Mitchel, Thierry Delva and the

Critical Art Ensemble Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) is a collective of five tactical media practitioners of various specializations including computer graphics and web design, film/video, photography, text art, book art, and performance. For CAE, tactical media is situat ...

The Rankin Family The Rankin Family (originally known as The Rankins) are a Canadian musical family group from Mabou, Nova Scotia. The group has won many Canadian music awards, including 15 East Coast Music Awards, six Juno Awards, four Society of Composers, Author ...

filmed the music video for their song "You Feel The Same Way Too" at the Khyber in the mid 1990s. In 1997, the Khyber Arts Society signed a five-year renewable lease with the City to occupy the Khyber Building. In 1998, the Khyber Club opened as a gallery space for contemporary art, a meeting place for the visual arts community and as a venue for Halifax's emerging music scene including acts by Canadian recording artists

Joel Plaskett William Joel MacDonald Plaskett (born April 18, 1975) is a Canadian rock musician and songwriter based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was a member of Halifax alternative rock band Thrush Hermit in the 1990s. Plaskett performs in a number of genres ...

, Sloan,

Eric's Trip Eric's Trip is a Canadian indie rock band from Moncton, New Brunswick. Eric's Trip achieved prominence as the first Canadian band to be signed to Seattle's flagship grunge label Sub Pop in the early 1990s. The band had a minor hit in alternative ...

, Elevator to Hell, Al Tuck, Soaking Up Jagged, Rick of the Skins, Julie Doiron,

Jenn Grant Jenn Grant (born August 20, 1980) is a Canadian folk pop singer-songwriter based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Career ''Jenn Grant and Goodbye Twentieth Century'' She performed as a musician for a time in her early teens, but stopped due to a bo ...

Old Man Luedecke Old Man Luedecke is the recording name of two-time Juno Award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter and banjo player Chris Luedecke of Chester, Nova Scotia. He is most noted as a two-time Juno Award winner for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year ...

Tanya Davis Tanya Davis is a Canadian singer-songwriter and poet, based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her style is marked primarily by spoken word poetry set to music. Background Born in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, she moved to Ottawa for a time after h ...

Buck 65 Richard Terfry (born March 4, 1972), better known by his stage name Buck 65, is a Canadian alternative hip hop artist. Underpinned by an extensive background in abstract hip hop, his more recent music has extensively incorporated blues, country, ...

, Skratch Bastid, Classified and

Ghettosocks Darren Pyper, better known by his stage name Ghettosocks, is a Juno Awards, Juno-nominated Canadian hip hop artist and member of the Backburner (hip hop group), Backburner collective. In early 2010, Ghettosocks' album ''Treat of the Day'' spent se ...

. In April 2014, Halifax Regional Municipality closed the building due to evidence of hazardous materials. The building's most recent occupancy consisted of the

, as well as the Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia.

References

External links

The Khyber Centre for the Arts1588 Building Preservation SocietyThe Turret
{{DEFAULTSORT:Khyber, The Churches completed in 1888 Art museums and galleries in Nova Scotia Museums in Halifax, Nova Scotia Music venues in Halifax, Nova Scotia Contemporary art galleries in Canada Former Anglican churches Arts centres in Canada

History

See also

References

External links