The Burnaby Art Gallery is dedicated to presenting a historical and contemporary art program by local, regional, national and international artists; facilitating the development of emerging artists; providing diverse art educational programming; acquiring culturally significant works on paper; and care for and management of the City of Burnaby Permanent Art Collection.
The goals of the gallery are to: provide access to contemporary Canadian art, present works from the permanent collection; collect contemporary works on paper; and offer challenging and educational exhibition related programming.
The role of the gallery is to provide leadership and direction in the visual arts for the citizenry and visual arts related organizations within the Greater Vancouver Regional District and provide access to the collection for research and exhibition development by organizations from across Canada. The gallery pays artists in accordance with CARFAC guidelines as approved by The Canadian Art Museums Directors Organisation (CAMDO)
The Burnaby Art Gallery is an art museum that serves a diverse range of regional and national communities. The gallery works with local organizations including the Artist’s Helping Artists Cooperative (AHA) through exhibiting their work and assisting in promotion of their cooperative; Burnaby Arts Council through assisting with adjudication of exhibitions and cross promotion of programs; Potters Guild of British Columbia through networking and establishing diverse programming for the gallery; Burnaby Photographic Society in assisting their organization with exhibitions at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts; Burnaby Public Libraries through diverse and challenging related exhibitions related to topical issues of the day; Burnaby School Division #41 through the Arts Alive program, Youth Week activities, and relational programming at the gallery for teachers; Burnaby Village Museum through cross promotion of education programs and shared work on the British Columbia Museums Association; Malaspina Printmakers Society as a resource for development of exhibitions and instructors for gallery printmaking programs; Shadbolt Centre for the Arts through cross promotion of activities, and the Vancouver Art Gallery as a resource for artists and research for curatorial development.