News

A new gallery on display this month at the Del Ray Artisans Gallery (2704 Mount Vernon Avenue) explores the risks and opportunities new technology like machine learning pose for artists.

The exhibit “Artificial or Intelligence?” explores the impact AI trends are having on artists. That impact has, by and large, been almost entirely negative, with image generating software stealing from the work of human artists, but the gallery offers that exhibit viewers should draw their own conclusions.


News

Break out your platform shoes and bell-bottoms, because the Torpedo Factory Art Center (105 N. Union Street) is throwing a 1970’s-themed party for its 50th birthday.

Every year, an estimated half-million people visit the former munitions plant-turned art center along the Alexandria waterfront for art shows, parties and to bookend a genuine Old Town experience.


News

A new mural is coming to the exterior of the Torpedo Factory Art Center.

The new mural, mixing abstract elements with American Dogwood flowers, is set to be installed on the Union Street-facing loading dock later this month.


News

After briefly shutting down a City Council meeting earlier this month, a group of pro-Palestine residents protested a gala headlined by Sen. Tim Kaine in Old Town.

Outside of the Alexandria Democratic Committee’s fundraiser gala at the Torpedo Factory Art Center Wednesday night, members of Alexandria for Palestinian Human Rights chanted for lawmakers inside to publicly support a ceasefire resolution in Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas.


News

Here’s a roundup of all the events, live music, and entertainment happening around Alexandria this weekend; enjoy! 

Are you organizing an event? Submit events to ALXnow.


News

A task force recommended to the City Council at a meeting last week that the Torpedo Factory Art Center (TFAC) be converted (item 9) to a “quasi-public entity.”

According to a presentation, the task force said:


News

This weekend marks the 105th anniversary of the Alexandria Torpedo Factory’s ironic origins.

As told in the Office of Historic Alexandria’s This Week in Historic Alexandria newsletter, the contract for constructing the U.S. Naval Torpedo Station was awarded on Oct. 14, 1918. The United States was embroiled in the First World War, but work on the building wouldn’t begin until the day after the war ended.


News

Virginia Tech and Alexandria’s Office of the Arts are collaborating on “Innovation and Creativity,” a year-long series of projects at the Torpedo Factory’s Target Gallery.

One of those projects, Sound Horizons, opened Aug. 5 and runs through to Jan. 28. Visitors sit in the tesseract, an array of high-density loudspeakers, and experience an immersive environment of sounds curated for Alexandria by Virginia Tech’s Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology (ICAT).


News

Union Sandwich Company (101 N Union Street), a new sandwich shop, is now open in the Torpedo Factory building at the end of King Street.

The shop, from the same team behind Slaters Market, officially opened on Aug. 18 a little under a year after permits were filed. Union Sandwich Company features fresh salads, sandwiches, eclectic wine, beer and more.


Opinion

This week, leaders on both sides of the Torpedo Factory discussion raised the issue of the city’s plans once more ahead of the center’s 50th anniversary.

The Torpedo Factory is celebrating 50 years as an arts center next year, but questions linger about what the long-term future of the building looks like.


News

City-approved plans for the future of the Torpedo Factory Art Center are drawing serious concern from resident artists.

The Torpedo Factory Artists Association (TFAA) says it’s hopeful the plan will work, but that the city’s vibrancy initiative threatens to reduce rental space available to artists.


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