Author Archives: curator

Latent

January 6 – April 6, 2024

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

The exhibition Latent emerges from conversations between artist Lynda Gammon and curator Carolyn Butler Palmer over the past several years about how artists who identify as women are often overlooked, ignored and sidestepped. At the Legacy Art Galleries, over the past decade the majority of solo exhibitions have featured the work of women artists and this exhibition furthers a desire to bring forward their work by honouring the many women who remain hidden in the University of Victoria’s Art Collection and the mechanisms that conceal them from view: the vault, accessioning, and the catalogue.

Artist bio: Lynda Gammon
See all events: Latent events & programs

Image: 12-minute meditation on untitled (serigraph), Elza Mayhew, n.d., Lynda Gammon, 2023.

Shaping Relations, Tethered Together

November 25, 2022 – February 18, 2024

Legacy Maltwood Gallery | On campus in the Mearns Centre – McPherson Library
Lekwungen territory

Curated by Mel Granley.

Shaping Relations, Tethered Together dives into Legacy’s permanent collection to explore ideas of togetherness and that which cultivates relationships. Each work examines a different facet of the relationships people form with one another, the world around us, and our relationships with ourselves. Tenderness and the importance of connection are meditated on throughout the exhibition, through a diverse selection of media and artists.

Showing at the Legacy Maltwood Gallery on campus, please come visit this eclectic show and spend some time with us.

Image: Rain Cabana-Boucher, French exit (detail), 2021.

Qw’an Qw’anakwal – To Come Together

Artist Portraits

Jan 22, 2022 – February 29, 2024

First Peoples House | UVic Campus
Lekwungen territory

Visit the exhibition website

Curated by Andrea Walsh, Smyth Chair in Arts and Engagement

Amanda LaLiberte’s photo portraits showcase 12 Coast Salish artists who participated in the Visiting Artist Program hosted by the UVic Department of Anthropology.

Image credit: Amanda Laliberte, 2021.

Under the Shade of the Lotus Tree: Pari Azarm Motamedi and Rozita Moini Shirazi

September 23 – December 9, 2023

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Under the Shade of the Lotus Tree: Pari Azarm Motamedi and Rozita Moini Shirazi is an exhibition that delves into the deep impact of leaving one’s homeland and the need for a connection to one’s roots. This show explores the power of Persian poetry as a foundation of cultural preservation and self-expression via the works of Persian-Canadian artists Pari Azarm Motamedi and Rozita Moini Shirazi. Motamedi and Moini Shirazi expertly translate and modernize classic Persian symbols, and stories, uncovering hidden messages in poems and tackling socio-political challenges in their nation. These artists inspire us to consider the complications of displacement and the everlasting value of art in bridging cultural barriers with powerful vision and elegant brushwork.

Explore the Under the Shade of the Lotus Tree 3D virtual exhibition.

Organized by the West Vancouver Art Museum.
Curated by Hilary Letwin and Anahita Ranjbar.

Image: Rozita Moini Shirazi, The Valley of Unity (detail), 2022.

Untitled ṮEṮÁĆES

September 23 – December 9, 2023

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Untitled ṮEṮÁĆES is the result of an artistic collaboration between TEMOSEṈ Charles “Chazz” Elliott (Lekwungen/W̱SÁNEĆ), Jesse Campbell (Métis) and Dr. Kim Shortreed to prototype a motion-activated art installation that speaks aloud toponyms, or place names, in SENĆOŦEN and English.

This non-traditional map is an artograph of the islands that surround W̱SÁNEĆ territories, in the Salish Sea, including the place settlers call the Saanich Peninsula.

Haptic refers to the sensation of touch, position, and motion. Using a haptic map, viewers are invited to experience connections to place through representations of landscape and place names, and to provide a way to learn orally about SENĆOŦEN and settler namescapes through curiosity and play.

Full exhibition text available online.

Explore the Untitled ṮEṮÁĆES 3D virtual exhibition.

Image: Chazz Elliott, Kim Shortreed, Jesse Campbell, Untitled ṮEṮÁĆES (detail), 2023

Francis Dick’s Walking Thru My Fires

April 22 – September 9, 2023

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Walking Thru My Fires showcases the work of one of the most prolific living Indigenous artists on the West Coast. This deeply personal exhibition explores Indian Residential School legacies, urban Indigeneity, reconciliation, and the healing power of art through Francis Dick’s prints, paintings, carvings, and music. It is an autobiography written in art.

Gule Wamkulu: Dancing Indigenous Governance

January 14 – April 8, 2023

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Gule Wamkulu invites the visitor to bear witness to the Great Dance that serves as the governance structure of the Chewa people. This immersive exhibition features photographs, films, and objects that celebrate how we, as diverse African Canadians, build community while being relationally respectful of all Coast Salish expressions of sovereignty.

—Guest curator, Dr. Devi Mucina, Program Director, School of Indigenous Governance & Kl. Peruzzo de Andrade

Dance Like Everybody’s Watching

January 14 – April 8, 2023

Legacy Downtown Sidewalk Gallery | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Local artist Simone Blais presents her debut documentary, Dance Like Everybody’s Watching. The short film exposes the lives of three Black dancers in Victoria, BC (lək̓ʷəŋən territory) as they expose their worlds of flamenco, hip hop, and dancehall. While the dancers grapple with racism, tokenism, and stereotypes, we are reminded that dance is always political. This film deals with themes of cultural appropriation in dance and is uniquely a BC production. 100% of the production, cast and crew are based in Victoria, BC.

Image: still from Dance Like Everybody’s Watching.

Piers

September 28 – December 22, 2022

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Curated by Kim Dhillon

Piers is a group exhibition showing contemporary artwork ranging across media by 18 artists spanning generations, nationalities, and backgrounds, exploring how artists’ practices change through teaching, learning, and mentorship.

Artists:
Katie Bethune-Leamen, Cedric Bomford, Lauren Brinson, Yan Wen Chang, Megan Dickie, Laura Dutton, Annika Eriksson, Daniel Laskarin, James Legaspi, Christopher Lindsay, Evan Locke, Danielle Proteau, Hollis Roberts, Arlene Stamp, Jennifer Stillwell, Beth Stuart, Grace Tsurumaru, Paul Walde.

Exhibition booklet: view
Artist bios: view

Image: James Legaspi, still from magnolia, 2020, HD video, 18 minutes 13 seconds.

Pop Anthropology

Oct 23, 2021 – Nov 13, 2022

Legacy Maltwood Gallery | On campus in the Mearns Centre – McPherson Library

Curated by Dorian Jesse Fraser, Doctoral Candidate, Concordia University (UVic MA, 2013).

Watch: Pop Goes the Art! Curator Talk

Read: West Coast Modernism and the Pop Sauvage of Eric Metcalfe, essay by Dorian Jesse Fraser

Pop Anthropology is an exhibition of multimedia artist Eric Metcalfe’s oeuvre, spanning over sixty years, in celebration of the artist’s honorary doctorate from UVic (UVic DFA 2021, BFA 1970). This exhibition continues the playful and charged work of Metcalfe’s life: reimagining images, tropes and stereotypes as poignant and plentiful scraps from which to pull meaning. It honours his early development as a student in Visual Arts at the University of Victoria in the early 1970s, as well as his lifetime achievements as a pioneer in performance art in western Canada and co-founder of the Western Front, one of Canada’s leading and longest running artist run centres.

Image credit: Eric Metcalfe, Untitled, 1967, gouache and watercolour on paper.

Still Standing: Ancient Forest Futures

June 25 – Sept 17, 2022

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Curated by Jessie Demers

Still Standing: Ancient Forest Futures brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists to reflect on our relationship with old-growth forests in B.C. from a range of cultural and philosophical perspectives. The exhibition explores the relationships between art, ecology and activism in order to envision futures which honour reciprocal relationships with nature.

Artists: Carey Newman, Connie Morey, Gord Hill, Heather Kai Smith, Jeremy Herndl, Jordan Hill, Kelly Richardson, Kyle Scheurmann, Mike Andrew McLean, Paul Walde, Rande Cook, Valerie Salez. Image: Jeremy Herndl, The Black Cedar, 2021.

Out of Place

Solo exhibition by Connie Morey

July 2 – Sept 17, 2022

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Out of Place delves into the relationships between the ground beneath our feet and the roofs over our heads. Through sculpture, photography and stop-motion projection, artist Connie Michele Morey explores ecological displacement (a colonial separation from the earth as home) and its impact on labour and housing dislocation. The exhibition grows out of tensions embodied in the artist’s mixed settler and Indigenous identity, alongside her personal experiences with housing insecurity. Emerging from travel to over fifty former village and industry sites on the east and west coasts of Canada, Out of Place questions what it means to be at home with the body, community, and earth. Image: Connie Morey, Roof Over My Head, Slag Heap, Coal Mine #1, K’omoks Traditional Territory (Comox Valley, BC), 2019.