The Old School House Arts Centre in Qualicum Beach is presenting new exhibitions which offer stories of the environment and community.

The exhibits include Floating World by Heather Thomas, Coincidence by Dave Casey and This Place by Brooke Emily and they will be at TOSH until June 24.

“All of them define their work very differently,” said Illana Hester, executive director of TOSH, who mentioned the coincidence of all three artists being teachers at some point. “I think the role of a curator is really as a community-builder and as a narrative storyteller and so when these sorts of coincidences happen I do try and tie them together.”

Floating World is a mixed media exhibition that aspires to principles of balance and rebirth in the natural world, according to Thomas’ artist statement.

“My work is centred on the overarching notion of carbon rift, a theory of ecological crisis,” Thomas said in her statement. “It attributes the input and output of carbon into the environment to human systems of development. The operating speed at which nature is appropriated for commodification and privatization has created an ever greater rift in the dislocation of carbon flows.”

Coincidence is made up of paintings that relate realism with the irrational through incorporation of bold acrylics, according to Casey’s artist statement.

He has a background in painting, and metal-smithing and is a professor emeritus retired from the Alberta University of the Arts (formerly named Alberta College of Art and Design).

Emily’s mixed media exhibition This Place was created in the months leading up to, during and shortly after her pregnancy, with a newborn in tow. It explores the “strange and significant”  responsibility of being a parent, according to her artist statement.

“This Place became the theme of the show. It refers not only to Earth in its entirety, but also to the piece of land we inhabit on this wet and often grey island,” Emily said in her artist statement.

“I think it’s this really interesting balance of creative process with parenting and then also showing where we are at,” Hester added.

The official opening of the exhibition is on May 16 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. TOSH is located at 122 Fern Rd W.

Fall education classes are live on the website, and are filling up, Hester said, as are five weeks of summer camp.