The Vermont Arts Exchange (VAE) has operated since 1994 as a non-profit community arts organization with the mission of “Strengthening Communities and Neighborhoods Through the Arts.”

Located at the Sage Street Mill, a renovated brick factory in the historic village of North Bennington, Vermont, VAE offers visual, literary and the performing arts opportunities through classes, workshops, residencies, exhibitions, and performances presenting national and international artists. We are committed to high quality arts and culture for all ages, abilities and income, and have been awarded and recognized on a local, national and international level for our work.

VAE's Outreach and Arts Education programs are sustained through ongoing working relationships and partnerships with local municipalities, housing groups, law enforcement, public and private schools and healthcare sites. We have a strong focus on serving Bennington County schoolchildren and at-risk youth through daytime, after-school and school-vacation programming.

Our Arts & Health Initiative, is a partnership project that uses the arts as an innovative treatment for patients living with chronic disabling diseases, including Alzheimer's. We customize and implement art programs at healthcare sites throughout New England through artist residencies utilizing such mediums as dance, writing, theater, drumming, music composition and the visual arts.

In the community, VAE artists, instructors, staff and friends can be found advocating the arts at festivals and parades - including VAE's annual Halloween Parade - via the VAE Art Bus; our “Mission In Motion” traveling art studio. Back at the mill, film and live music can be enjoyed at the popular cabaret-style Basement Music Series, which brings local and national musicians to the stage in VAE's intimate studio setting.

VAE's exhibition and performance venues help support the work of local, regional, and visiting artists with gallery space at the Stark Hose Firehouse Gallery in downtown Bennington and the Mill Gallery at VAE's Sage Street Mill in North Bennington. Artists are further encouraged to work within the community through VAE-sponsored affordable artist housing. Made possible through a partnership with Vermont Housing, the 15 units of affordable residential and gallery/workshop spaces in five historic buildings in Bennington County support artistic endeavors and inspire new work.

VAE believes that integrating and weaving the arts into our lives and neighborhoods creates a strong, vibrant, healthy community and economy.