History of Semiahmoo Arts Society
1969
In 1969, members of the White Rock Painting & Sketch Club, White Rock Players Club, and White Rock Overture Society met to discuss the need for a local arts council. On January 29, 1974, they formed the Community Arts Council of White Rock & District and began looking for a home. The City of White Rock offered the Burlington Northern Railway Station, however, they feared that they would have to wait decades for it to become available. Fortunately, Burlington Northern Railway donated the station to the City the very next year. It became known as the Station Arts Centre.
The Semiahmoo Centre of the Arts
In 1984, the White Rock Players Club requested funding from White Rock City Council to renovate their theatre. The Council refused, but the Mayor of White Rock offered to support a larger project: rebuilding the theatre to accommodate the Community Arts Council. Talks between the White Rock Players Club and Community Arts Council over this project, dubbed the Semiahmoo Centre for the Arts, continued but never came to fruition.
From Place To Place
The Community Arts Council left the Station Arts Centre in 1991 to make room for the White Rock Museum. This left them without a home until the International Care Corporation offered them a space on Pacific Terrace which open in November 1991.
They left Pacific Terrace in 1995 and set up a fundraising office on 16 Avenue, followed by a larger space on Roper Avenue. The Roper location had room for administrative offices, a gallery, the Picture Loan Program, and a pottery studio was available at nearby White Rock Elementary. In 1998, they moved again into a warehouse complex on 24 Avenue, which they called The Artery. which initially offered a gallery, a gift shop, and art classes. Later a pottery studio was added after White Rock Elementary shut its pottery studio space, which meant the gallery and gift shop had to close due to lack of space.
In 2002 the Council moved to Russell Avenue. In 2005, they moved again to Windsor Square Mall, where they had previously run exhibitions. Changes to how the Province awarded grants in 2010 cut the Council’s grant income—its primary source of funding—in half. They petitioned the City of White Rock for a lease in Centennial Park, which they received; they moved into their new facility there in 2012, having closed their Windsor location in 2011. They remained in the Centennial Park location until 2018.
Semiahmoo Arts Society Today
In 2009, the Community Arts Council renamed itself Semiahmoo Arts Society (SAS) to reflect its geographic location and the First Nations heritage of the area. Its mandate remained the same: an arts advocacy organization serving White Rock and South Surrey.
The next year, the City of Surrey offered SAS a role in planning the new South Surrey Recreation & Arts Centre (SSRAC) facility. In 2014, SAS began operating the civic arts space at SSRAC providing arts education programming for the community as it continues to do today, making us both the community’s arts council and its civic arts space operator and programmer.