Catherine de Montreuil is an artist, arts worker, and trained horticulturist whose leadership is informed by her experience as a working class person. Throughout her work within the network of Vancouver’s artist-run organizations, she has advocated for fair labour standards and greater equity within the arts. She has extensive experience in independent arts publishing, and maintains a particular interest in cultural relationships to landscape, the natural world, craft, language, and mythologies; and in expanding the definition of who might be considered an artist.
UNIT/PITT was the site of Catherine’s first artist-run centre experience, as Programming Assistant under Kay Higgins in 2015. Since then, she has gone on to work with several artist-run organizations and institutional galleries within Vancouver, including Access Gallery, Artspeak, Publication Studio Vancouver, the Vancouver Art Gallery, Libby Leshgold Gallery and more. Notably, Catherine was a founding member and Project Coordinator of the Vancouver Artists Labour Union Cooperative (VALU CO-OP), and of the Arts and Cultural Workers Union (IATSE Local B778) from 2018-21—a complex initiative which has sought to create more equitable labour standards and opportunities within the arts. Catherine graduated from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in 2017 with a major in Critical and Cultural Practices, and trained at the UBC Botanical Garden’s Horticulture Training Program in 2021, where she was the recipient of the David Tarrant Award for Outstanding Achievement. She looks forward to synthesizing her range of experience and interests in collaboration with UNIT/PITT’s community of emerging writers, curators, artists, and musicians, and to start a new chapter in the organization’s 48-year history.
The Board of Directors would like to thank UNIT/PITT’s outgoing Director Brit Bachmann for her leadership from 2019-2022. Brit will continue on with the society as Development Coordinator and ReIssue Publisher.
