Category Archives: Legacy Downtown

Exhibitions displayed at 630 Yates Street under the names Legacy Art Gallery Downtown, Legacy Art Gallery, and Legacy Art Gallery and Cafe.

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  

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.

Isshoni

Henry Shimizu’s Paintings of New Denver Internment  

April 22 – June 18, 2022

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory
Inner Gallery

Curated by Samantha Marsh

Isshoni: Henry Shimizu’s Paintings of New Denver Internment is an exploration of Japanese Canadian identity, community, and family. Centering the voices of three generations, issei, nisei, and sansei (first, second, and third-generation), this exhibition provides insight into the intergenerational impacts of the forced uprooting and internment of Japanese Canadians during WWII. 

いっしょに

ヘンリー清水・ニューデンバー強制収容絵画展

2022年4月22日〜6月18日
レガシー美術館 ダウンタウン

いっしょに:ヘンリー清水のニューデンバー強制収容の絵画は、日系カナダ人のアイデンティティ、コミュニティ、そして家族についての探求の試みです。この展覧会では、一世、二世、三世の三世代の声を中心に、第二次世界大戦中の日系カナダ人の強制移動と強制収容の世代を超えた影響についての洞察が展示されます。

Image: Henry Shimizu, Bon Odori


Related Programming


Japanese Canadians in the arts: “Did you think it’d come true?”

A Lansdowne Lecture with artist Bryce Kanbara

April 23, 2022 | 7pm
UVic Legacy Art Gallery Downtown | 630 Yates St.

Exploring Japanese Canadian artists, issues of identity, and intergenerational relationships, Governor General Award-winning artist Bryce Kanbara will give a presentation for the opening of the exhibition Isshoni: Henry Shimizu’s Paintings of New Denver InternmentWith opening remarks by the exhibition curator, Samantha Marsh.

Watch the lecture on YouTube

Breaking the Mold

April 16 – June 18, 2022

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Organized by Natasha Reid, UVic Art Education

Artist-teachers practice in a hybrid space where pedagogy, art-making, and research intertwine and inform each other. UVic Art Education faculty and sessional instructors share their diverse perspectives, approaches, and experiences inviting visitors to consider ways in which art education stimulates engagement with critical questions and creates stronger connections between people, places, and ideas.

Artists:

Robert Dalton, Mike Emme, Karen Hibbard, Natalie LeBlanc, Connie Michele Morey, Regan Rasmussen, Natasha S. Reid, Kathleen Schmalz, Alison Shields, Shruti Tandon, Michelle Wiebe, William Zuk, Caren Willms

Image: Mike Emme, Lockers, 1986/2022.


Related Programming


‘that to which we cling’
Drop-in clay hand-building workshop with Regan Rasmussen

Saturday, May 14 2022 | 11-3pm
UVic Legacy Art Gallery Downtown | 630 Yates St.

Facilitated by Regan Rasmussen (UVic Art Education), this workshop is dedicated to the theme of resilience. Using local mollusk shells as inspiration and applying clay hand-building techniques, participants will respond to a ceramic sculpture installation from the exhibition Breaking the Mold by making their own small ceramic artifact while considering the question: What beliefs and practices do we cling to for sanctuary and resilience in times of adversity?

Free and open for all ages
Drop-in, no registration required

More about Regan Rasmussen: https://www.reganrasmussen.com/


Gift of Food
Art Hive with Natasha S. Reid

Saturday, June 18 2022 | 12-3pm
UVic Legacy Art Gallery Downtown | 630 Yates St.

Come join us for a pop-up art hive in the gallery! Visitors are invited to experiment with art making in a welcoming drop-in community setting. To learn more about art hives, visit www.arthives.org. As a starting point, Natasha S. Reid will facilitate an activity that explores various fruits and vegetables commonly grown in Jamaica.

At the end, you can give your finished art work to ISSAMBA’s La Teranga Food Distribution to be added to a food hamper or you can bring it home and gift it to someone you know.

This art activity is an extension of Natasha’s artwork Plantain Belt currently exhibited in the Breaking the Mold exhibition at UVic’s Legacy Gallery (630 Yates Street).

Body Language: Reawakening Cultural Tattooing of the Northwest

Jan 12 – Apr 9, 2022

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Curated by Dion Kaszas
Organized by the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art

Body Language is about the reclamation of cultural tattooing in the Pacific Northwest. This exhibition takes an intimate look at historic and contemporary cultural tattooing from the perspectives of 5 Indigenous artists. Body Language explores designs on skin and their relationship to traditional clothing, rock art, jewelry, basketry and weaving to provide healing, protection and a sense of cultural knowledge and belonging

Image credit: Aaron Leon, The Body Language artists during planning meetings at Whistler, 2017.


Related Programming


Live Tattoo Demo and Artist Talk

with Audie Murray and Nicole Neidhardt

March 12 2022 | 12-4pm
UVic Legacy Art Gallery Downtown | 630 Yates St.

Click here to go to Facebook event with live stream link.

Join artists Nicole Neidhardt (Diné) and Audie Murray (Michif) for a live demonstration of cultural tattooing in person and online. Nicole will be demonstrating hand-poke tattooing in person at the Legacy Art Gallery Downtown while Audie demonstrates skin-stitch tattooing remotely. Opening prayer and artist talks begin at noon, with tattoo demonstrations to follow.


Artist Talk

Jan 13, 2022 | 7-8:30pm

Online via Zoom

Join us for a panel discussion among the artists Nahaan (Tlingit), Nakkita Trimble (Nisga’a) and Dion Kaszas (Nlaka’pamux) featured in Body Language: Reawakening Cultural Tattooing of the Northwest exhibition now on display at the Legacy Art Gallery.

Learn about cultural tattooing from an Indigenous perspective. Artists will cultural tattooing is connected to their respective cultures, personal identities’ and how they are reviving this practice in their communities.

Derrumbeat: The Beat of Collapse

Image credit: Ained Cala, Derrumbeat.

Jan 15 – Apr 9, 2022

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Curated by Dr. Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier

In Spanish, derrumbar means to crumble away, to tumble down. Derrumbeat is a sonic collage accompanied by photos and video work created from the audio-visual traces left by falling rocks, pieces of wood, cement and ceramics collected in various abandoned sites in the capital of Cuba, Havana. Derrumbeat calls visitors to listen to the traces left by human passages and presence in an urban environment as time passes. It further encourages listeners to reflect on the rejuvenation of decay and the layers of meanings we can unearth in our own cities.


Related Programming


Sounds That Bring us Together: Panel discussion

Feb 24, 2022
UVic Legacy Art Gallery Downtown | 630 Yates St

Attending to the sounds around us can offer new perspectives on the spaces we inhabit. Sound is also a powerful tool to convey emotion and connect us with our past. Inspired by the current exhibition Derrumbeat – The Beat of Collapse, anthropologists, artists, musicians and composers will discuss how they think about and integrate sounds in their work with a focus on how sounds contribute to new forms of connection, collaboration, relation, and synthetization in the participants’ ways of thinking, reflecting and imagining.

Panelists:

Adi Laflamme, Composer, Producer, Performer, MA candidate School of Music, UVic
Sue Frohlick, UBC Okanagan, Professor, Anthropology, Gender and Women’s Studies, UBC-Okanagan
Paul Walde, Sound and Visual Artist, Associate Professor, Visual Arts, UVic

Moderator:

Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier, Associate Professor, Anthropology, UVic

Ungasittuq – Something that is Far Away

Image credit: Barry Pottle, UNGAVA, 2021.

A project by Barry Pottle

October 7 – December 23, 2021

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St. | Inner gallery
Lekwungen territory

Ungasittuq is an exploration of distance, space, acceptance and pushing boundaries. This exhibition aims to build a foundation for contemporary urban Inuit art photography within the broader popular understanding of contemporary Inuit art.  Recent photographs by Barry Pottle present a counterpoint and complement to sculpture, drawings, and prints by Inuit artists to give a broader understanding of contemporary realities and experience.


Related Programming


Urban Inuit Connections to Homeland and Culture

Online discussion with Barry Pottle, Heidi Langille and Stephanie Papik

Nov 18 2021 | 3pm PST

Join Ottawa-based artist Barry Pottle and cultural worker Heidi Langille alongside Victoria-based Stephanie Papik as they discuss their creative practices, connections to homeland, and what it means to be Urban Inuit. Both Barry and Heidi see themselves as cultural ambassadors and contribute to a thriving Inuit community in Ottawa. Stephanie is the Director for Strategic Integration of Indigenous Knowledge, Cultural Safety and Humility with BC Emergency Management.

Qw’an Qw’anakwal: To Come Together

Photography by Amanda Laliberte, 2021

September 29 – December 23, 2021

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Curated by Andrea Walsh, Smyth Chair in Arts and Engagement

Visit the exhibition website

Qw’an Qw’anakwal – To Come Together is the 10th anniversary celebration of the Visiting Artist Program hosted by the Department of Anthropology at the University of Victoria. The exhibition features new works by 12 artists and their collaborators from Salish nations on Vancouver Island, who have participated in the Visiting Artist Program since 2010. The exhibition features knitting, wool and cedar weaving, carving, drawing, and painting.

Image credit: Amanda Laliberte, 2021.

On Beaded Ground

On Beaded Ground explores the essential role of Indigenous artists' creative practices in the reclamation and renewal of culture, identity, stories and teachings.

[Image Description: Close-up of a beadwork design on white wool fabric. The design prominently features a blue and gold beaded flower and a large green beaded leaf.]
Image: Lynette LaFontaine, Kokuminawak Sakihitowin Kayas Ochi Grandmas’ Love From Long Ago, naming credit: Dianne Ludwig (detail), 2021. 

April 21 – September 18, 2021

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Curated by Lorilee Wastasecoot (UVic BA ’17), Curator of Indigenous Art & Engagement, UVic Legacy Galleries

Visit the exhibition website

On Beaded Ground explores the essential role of Indigenous women’s creative practices in the reclamation and renewal of culture, identity, stories and teachings. The beaded artworks in the exhibition carry stories. The materials, methods of making, designs and functions of beaded objects are languages particularly devised to transmit memories, legacies, and narratives between people across time and space.

This selection of works reflects the current proliferation of artists beading on the west coast and explores practices past and present. Featured artists include Margaret August (Coast Salish), Daphne Boyer (Metis), Cedar Circle Indigenous Leadership Group, Maxine Matilpi (Kwakwaka’wakw), Bev Koski (Anishinaabe), Lynette Lafontaine (Nehiyow/ Michif), Nicole Mandryk (Anishinaabe/Ukranian/Irish, UVic BA ‘19), Audie Murray (Michif), Teresa Vander Meer-Chasse (Upper Tanana), and Estrella Whetung (Anishinaabe, UVic PhD (ABD), MA ‘10, BA ‘08).

Event Series Playlist

Urban Regalia: Westshore Stories

Image: Design by Yolonda Skelton. Photo by Baylee Woodley.

January 18 – April 11, 2020

Legacy Downtown  | 630 Yates St. | Inner Gallery |Lekwungen territory

Button blankets by Westshore Colwood Campus students. Curated by UVic Art History and Visual Studies students. A project of the Legacy Chair.

Button blanket robes are textile regalia worn in Northwest Coast feasts and ceremonies. Urban Regalia: Westshore Stories carries the vision of Gitxsan button blanket maker, fashion designer, and teacher Sugitt Lukxs — Yolonda Skelton from her studio to her students at the Westshore Colwood Campus. Westshore students tell stories from their lives and from making connections to the land using ovoids, u-forms, s-forms, melton wool fabric and buttons. UVic Art History and Visual Studies students curated this exhibition as part of their learning about oral art histories. Urban Regalia: Westshore Stories represents shared learning experiences and emerging connections between UVic and Westshore classrooms.

| Legacy Art Gallery + Fine Arts

FLUID: Portraits by Blake Little

Image: Blake Little, Leo and Nathan; David; Brynn, ©BlakeLittle2019.

January 11 – April 11, 2020

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Guest curated by Wayne Baerwaldt.

As people who identify as trans, gender fluid, non-binary, Two Spirit, and other diverse gender identities face complex and challenging societal responses, the act of representing oneself can be a brave act of defiance. FLUID, a new photographic portrait series by Los Angeles-based artist Blake Little, sets out to collaborate with diverse local, national and international trans and gender fluid people to capture and reflect some of the concerns and potentials of how they choose to represent themselves through photography.

Supported by the Chair in Transgender Studies. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.



Teacher’s Guide

This FLUID: Portraits by Blake Little exhibition Teacher’s Guide is free to download and use as reference in the classroom.


Events & Programs

Film Screening & Artist Talk: Framing Agnes with Chase Joynt

Sunday, April 5th | 2-4 pm Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St. | Lekwungen territory | Facebook Event Supported by the Chair in Transgender Studies

Join trans culture writer and filmmaker Chase Joynt for a discussion about the role of fantasy and fiction in the telling of (trans) histories along with a screening of his recent short film, Framing AgnesFraming Agnes premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and is being expanded into a feature film with support from Telefilm Canada’s Talent to Watch program. Joynt joined UVic’s Department of Gender Studies in July, 2019 after his term as a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago. Copies of Joynt’s first book, You Only Live Twice—a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award that was also named one of the best books of the year by The Globe and Mail and the CBC—will be on hand and available for purchase.

About Framing Agnes: In the late 1950s, a woman named Agnes approached the UCLA Medical Center seeking sex reassignment surgery. Her story was long considered to be exceptional and singular until never-before-seen case files of other patients were found in 2017. Framing Agnes features preeminent trans culture-makers breathing new life into those who redefined gender in the mid-century.

Starring Zackary Drucker (She Gone Rogue, Transparent), Angelica Ross (Pose, American Horror Story), Silas Howard (By Hook or By Crook, A Kid Like Jake), and Max Wolf Valerio (Max, The Testosterone Files).


Open Celebration: FLUID Portraits by Blake Little

Saturday, January 25 | 2 – 4pm | Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St. | Lekwungen territory |Supported by the Chair in Transgender Studies

Join us for the opening reception of FLUID featuring a performance by local spoken word artist K.P Dennis.

There is Truth Here: Creativity and Resilience in Children’s Art from Indian Residential and Day Schools

 

Legacy Downtown – 630 Yates St.

September 23, 2017 to January 6, 2018

Guest curated by Dr. Andrea N. Walsh, Anthropology, UVic.

View the exhibition website here

There is Truth Here brings a new line to bear on the role of art as part of children’s knowledge, identity, and experiences of Indian Residential and Day Schools. Through paintings, drawings, sewing, beading, drumming, and singing, and drama produced by children and youth who attended them in British Columbia and Manitoba the exhibition seeks to contribute in vital and new ways to dialogues and initiative about true telling, reconciliation, and redress in Canada.

The first person perspectives of Survivors and former students, their families, and communities are told via children’s creativity to bring a multi-generational perspective on the lives of children in the schools. The exhibition explores the common thread of historical resilience in the creation of the artworks, and speaks to the importance of the art today as nodes of healing and resurgence.

Media: “Art of Innocence in Dark Times” Times Colonist | Galleries West First Nations children’s art, created at residential and day schools, opens pathways for healing and reconciliation“, Focus Magazine.

Image: Courtesy of Osoyoos Museum Society.

Programming

Panel Discussion & Public Celebration

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St. | September 30, 2017 | 2:30 – 5pm

Two back to back public events on Orange Shirt Day. A public celebration of the exhibition There Is Truth Here: Creativity and Resilience in Children’s Art from Indian Residential and Day Schools including welcoming speeches, a performance by A.N.S.W.E.R. drumming group (All Nations Strong Womyn for Education and Reconciliation), and refreshments and light food from Seefood Catering.

Public Celebration | 4 – 5pm | Panel Discussion | 2:30 – 4pm

Creative Acts: Art and Resilience in an Era of Reconciliation

Residential school Survivors, artists, students, and museum- based scholars will share their diverse range of experiences and perspectives on how creativity and art can be used as acts and forms of resilience. Set within the context of the exhibition There is Truth Here, the six panelists and moderator Dr. Andrea Walsh will explore how art in various forms in public spaces can be critical tools for change in the wake of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and in the midst of the National Inquiry for Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls.

Panel Participants

Mark Atleo was born in 1952 in Tofino, British Columbia and he is a member of the Ahousaht First Nation. He grew up in Ahousaht with his mom, dad, and 9 siblings. At 8 years of age he began attendance at the Alberni Indian Residential School (AIRS) until the age of 16. In 1968 he moved to Victoria and finished his high school diploma at Oak Bay High School. In 2013 Mark joined the University of Victoria’s project to repatriate children’s art from the Alberni Indian Residential School after his own painting was returned to him at the National Event for Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Vancouver. Through his work with the University of Victoria research group, his story is now part of the permanent exhibition of residential school history in the new Canada Hall at the Canadian Museum of History. He continues to share his story with a personal goal of educating present and future generations about residential schools in Canada, and is a supporter of continued dialogue about the schools as a form of reconciliation.

Lindsay Delaronde is an Iroquois, Mohawk woman, born and raised on the Kahnawake reservation. She holds a BFA from the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design and a MFA and a Masters of Counselling from the University of Victoria. In 2016 Legacy Art Gallery featured her exhibition IN DEFIANCE that challenged stereotypes of Indigenous women. She is currently the Indigenous Artist in Residence for the City of Victoria.

Dr. Jennifer C. Robinson has recently defended her PhD thesis in Visual Anthropology and Materiality in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Victoria. She holds an MA from University London, and has studied at University of British Columbia and Mount Royal University. She has won many academic awards including University of Victoria President’s Research Scholarship and Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council, Doctoral Fellowship. Her research is driven by her love of arts and culture, and by her belief that exhibitions, galleries, and museums can be spaces that create change. As a Visual Anthropologist, her research is focused on the diversity of Canadian culture.

Lorilee Wastasecoot is an Ininu iskwew (Cree woman) with roots in York Factory Cree Nation and Peguis First Nation in Manitoba. Lorilee grew up in Winnipeg, MB and respectfully acknowledges the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations on whose territory she currently resides. She is a recent Political Science graduate of the University of Victoria. In 2015, Lorilee and her family first became aware of a painting her father, James Wastasecoot, created in Robert Aller’s art class in Dauphin, MB at the Mackay Indian Residential School where her father spent 12 years of his life. Lorilee is a fourth generation inter-generational residential school survivor.

Gina Laing (Cootes) and her daughter April Laing are members of the Uchuklesaht First Nation, and their home community is Kildonan Reserve on the Alberni Inlet. Gina was a student of Robert Aller’s in the late 1950s and she has worked alongside her daughter April to use her childhood art, and experience of residential school to teach Canadians about this era of their country’s history. In 2015 they recorded the story of the repatriation of Gina’s childhood paintings from the Alberni Indian residential school from Gina’s perspective as a Survivor, and April’s perspective as an Intergenerational Survivor at the Canadian Museum of History. Gina’s painting and their story as mother and daughter now appear in the new Canada Hall at the national museum.