Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival 2026 Opening Event
Join us to celebrate the opening of the 10th Annual Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival – a free, community-focused celebration bringing together artists, art lovers, friends, and neighbours to experience the incredible creativity and diversity of this year’s participating artists.
Date: October 16, 2026
Time: 5:30pm
Where: The Roundhouse, 181 Roundhouse Mews
Be among the first to explore more than 400 artworks on display in the exhibition hall, offering a vibrant glimpse into the many perspectives, stories, and creative worlds represented at this year’s festival.
More than an opening night, this is an invitation to step beyond convention and experience art in its many unexpected, personal, and powerful forms. Come discover new perspectives, connect with the community, and celebrate the unfiltered imagination of outsider artists.
We can’t wait to welcome you and celebrate this year’s remarkable artists!
Free and open to everyone.
About the Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival
Community Arts Council of Vancouver presents the annual Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival (VOAF), offering visual and performing artists facing social exclusion and other barriers opportunities for exhibition and sales, performance and participation, connection and learning. VOAF is Canada’s first and only festival for Outsider Art, which is represented by significant fairs and museums globally. The artists may be self-taught or trained: they are all devoted to their creative practices, and come from a point of view that is outside the mainstream art world trends.
Disrupting Exclusion, Inviting Connection
Our primary values are inclusion and active participation towards strengthening a sense of creative citizenship among participants and the public. Eligible artists self-identified as outsiders and have strong creative practices with wildly diverse aesthetics. Artists and performers are paid CARFAC fees and benefit from the free workshops, networking, and promotion included in their participation: this can be a significant professional opportunity for outsider artists.
The festival aims to increase awareness about Outsider Artists and to challenge stereotypes about who and what counts in the art world. Outsider Art is different, this art shakes up what you think you know about art and sometimes delves headfirst into challenging social and political issues. The festival provides a much-needed platform for visual and performing artists to gather, learn, and share their creative scope with the wider community.
Four festivals have taken place at the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre and included individual artists as well as organizational partners, workshops for artists and the public, and hundreds of artworks on display and for sale, alongside live art and other performance forms.
Our primary values are inclusion and active participation towards strengthening a sense of community and creative citizenship among participants and the public.