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.

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.

 

Origin Stories: First Nations Prints and Carvings

April 8 to September 16, 2017

Legacy Downtown – 630 Yates St.

Guest curated by Jackson McDermott (Dene/Cree) with Gillian Booth & Katie Hughes.

As Canada celebrates 150 years since Confederation, the Legacy Art Galleries respectfully acknowledges a much longer history by presenting First Nations narratives that move beyond limited settler versions of history. Through prints and carvings chosen by guest curator, Jackson McDermott (Dene/Cree) from the Fort Nelson First Nation, the exhibition explores centuries-old stories that continue to live in the people, communities, nations and lands of this place.

This Exhibition was shown in conjunction with There’s Blood in the Rocks, a video installation by Marianne Nicolson.

Event

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.

Thursday, June 1st, 2017 | 7pm

Engaging with Indigenous Legal Traditions through Stories and Art

Facebook Page

The revitalization and recognition of Indigenous laws are essential to reconciliation in Canada. Indigenous art and stories play an important role in guiding this work as they not only depict cultural beliefs but also represent aspects of legal traditions.

Join Dr. Rebecca Johnson and Jessica Asch (LL.B) from the University of Victoria Faculty of Law as they share current research about Indigenous art and its relationship to law. During this program, the audience will engage critically with the art and stories in the current exhibition Origin Stories at Legacy Art Gallery Downtown.

Image credit: There’s Blood in the Rocks, Video Installation Still, Marianne Nicolson.

There’s Blood in the Rocks

April 8 to September 16, 2017

Legacy Downtown – 630 Yates St.

Video Installation

“Indigenous blood is in the very land itself.” Marianne Nicolson

Organized by Gillian Booth and Katie Hughes.

Kwakwaka’wakw artist Marianne Nicolson uses pictographic imagery and song in a quiet but powerful video installation that tells the often silenced history of the 1862 small pox epidemic in Victoria which utterly devastated thousands of West Coast First Nations people. Nicolson acknowledges the loss of her ancestors while affirming continued Indigenous presence in the land and the strength, endurance and resurgence of First Nations peoples over time.

This video installation was shown in conjunction with the exhibition, Origin Stories: First Nations Prints and Carvings.

Event

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.

Thursday, June 1st, 2017 | 7pm

Engaging with Indigenous Legal Traditions through Stories and Art

Facebook Page

The revitalization and recognition of Indigenous laws are essential to reconciliation in Canada. Indigenous art and stories play an important role in guiding this work as they not only depict cultural beliefs but also represent aspects of legal traditions.

Join Dr. Rebecca Johnson and Jessica Asch (LL.B) from the University of Victoria Faculty of Law as they share current research about Indigenous art and its relationship to law. During this program, the audience will engage critically with the art and stories in the current exhibition Origin Stories at Legacy Art Gallery Downtown.

Image credit: There’s Blood in the Rocks, Video Installation Still, Marianne Nicolson.

So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright

FLW_window_2

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Inner Gallery

July 15 – September 16, 2017

Curated by Emerald Johnstone-Bedell

Exhibition website

After five decades of stewardship, the UVic Legacy Art Galleries is giving seven Frank Lloyd Wright designed windows back to the house they originated from. Say farewell to the art glass windows at our exhibition that celebrates this monumental gift during the 150th anniversary of the internationally renowned architect’s birth.

These original windows are intrinsic decorative and architectural parts of Wright’s unifying design principle called “organic architecture.” Wright was inspired by nature and natural materials to build harmonious designs that were integrated between their environment, architectural plan, fixtures and furniture.

The ‘light screens’, as Wright called them, were created in 1904-05 for the Darwin D. Martin House Complex in Buffalo, New York. In the wake of the Great Depression, the family house was abandoned and left in disrepair until recent renovations have restored the complex into a National Historic Landmark. These salvaged light screens are some of the last pieces needed to achieve Wright’s visionary intent and complete the major restoration project.

Event

FLW_windowPresentation & Discussion

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.

September 16, 2017 | 3 – 5pm | Facebook Page

UVic Legacy Art Galleries’ return of Frank Lloyd Wright-designed windows back to their original home is a rare gesture of a museum transferring valuable objects out of their collection to serve a greater purpose.

Join us for a presentation by Director, Mary Jo Hughes and Darwin D. Martin House Curator, Susana Tejada as they discuss how UVic’s windows contribute to the restoration of a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home in Buffalo, New York.

Hughes will speak to the intent of the gallery’s decision and the significance of returning the windows to the context designed for them. Tejada will present the history of the Darwin D. Martin House and recent restoration achievements, while emphasizing how the original windows will have a lasting impact on Frank Lloyd Wright’s legacy.

This event falls on the final day of the So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition and will be the last opportunity for the community to say goodbye to the windows.

MartinHouseDirector Susana Tejada is Curator of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin D. Martin House where she oversees exhibitions, interpretation, and scholarly programs for this National Historic Landmark—a multi-residential estate admired for its six signature buildings, interior and exterior gardens, and an extraordinary collection of art glass and furnishings. Prior to her appointment in 2012, Susana served in various capacities in the fields of museum, archives, and library administration and has held professional positions at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the State University of New York at Buffalo, and New York State’s Documentary Heritage Program. Susana was an invited participant in The Getty’s prestigious Next Generation Leadership Institute, an executive education program for the art museum field’s top emerging talent. She holds a Master’s degree from the University of Michigan and a duel Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Medieval and Renaissance Studies from New York University. She is a native of Los Angeles.

MJHughesMary Jo Hughes is the Director of the University of Victoria Art Legacy Art Galleries. From 2007 to 2012 she was Chief Curator at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. She has served as Senior Curator athe Winnipeg Art Gallery and Associate Curator at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston Ontario. Mary Jo Completed her MA in Art History at Queens University, with a specialization in Canadian art history, and has taught at the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba.

The Mystery of Grafton Tyler Brown: Race, Art, and Landscape in 19th Century British Columbia

January 21 to April 1, 2017

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown – Inner Gallery | 630 Yates Street

Guest curated by Dr. John Lutz (History, UVic) with Emerald Johnstone Bedell and Caroline Riedel.

Exhibition Catalogue here

We know Grafton Tyler Brown (1841-1918) was one of the first professional landscape artists to work in the Pacific Northwest. His few regional paintings that survive offer vivid windows into the world of 1880s Victoria and British Columbia. Yet, how did this African American artist succeed at a time when racial prejudice prevented most Blacks from entering any skilled profession?

Image credit: Portrait of Artist Grafton Tyler Brown, Image A-08775 courtesy of the Royal BC Museum and Archives

EVENTS & PROGRAMS

Curator’s Talk with Guest Lecture

February 4 | 3 – 4:30pm *Light Refreshments Provided

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown  | 630 Yates Street

Kick-off Black History Month with an afternoon presentation about BC’s first Black professional artist with UVic History Department Chair John Lutz and writer, Robert J. Chandler. Facebook Event Page 

Performance

March 10 | 7 – 9pm *Light Refreshments Provided

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown
630 Yates Street

TOPIC: Re-Imagining Race, Art, and Landscape

Three local artists, Charles Campbell, Kemi Craig and Ann-Bernice Thomas respond to the story of Grafton Tyler Brown, BC’s first Black professional artist. Part of Ideafest. Facebook Event Page

Generously supported by the British Columbia Arts Council

Ellen Neel: The First Woman Totem Pole Carver

January 14 to April 1, 2017

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown  | 630 Yates Street

Curated by the Williams Legacy Chair Dr. Carolyn Butler Palmer with advising curators David A. Neel and Lou-ann Neel

This exhibition celebrates the career of Kwagiulth (Kwakwaka’wakw) carver Ellen Neel (1916-1966), the first woman carver of monumental totem poles. Further, it acknowledges Neel’s influential role as a professional artist and her contribution towards the recognition of what Neel called “Indian Art”. “Our art continues to live, for not only is it part and parcel of us, but can be a powerful factor in combining the best part of Indian culture with the fabric of a truly Canadian art form.” – Ellen Neel

Image credit: Kakasolas (Ellen Neel), carved and painted cedar mask by David A. Neel (photograph by Katie Hughes. On loan from Camosun College, Department of Visual Arts.

EVENTS

EllenNeelLecture

Feb. 22 | 5 – 6pm *limited seating

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown  | 630 Yates Street

Distinguished Women Scholar Lecture Series

TOPIC: “I Want to Call Their Names in Resistance”: Claiming Space for Indigenous Women in Canadian Art History.

Dr. Sherry Farrell Racette, Professor, artist & curator. Presented by the Department of Art History and Visual Studies.

Facebook Event Page

The Averted Eye Sees: The Life and Work of Glenn Howarth – Part II

 

October 15, 2016 to January 7, 2017

Curated by Jenelle Pasiechnik (UVic MA, 2015)
With supervision from Caroline Riedel (Legacy Art Galleries)

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown | 630 Yates Street

Exhibition Website

Glenn Howarth was a pillar in Victoria’s arts scene from the late 1970s until his death in 2009. He also had an enduring connection to the University of Victoria — as a Visual Arts student in the 1960s, a sessional instructor, an artist-in-residence with the Engineering Department, and recently with a bequest of his archival papers and digital art. Howarth was an innovative creator and inspired teacher searching for ways to communicate the artistic process and the perceptual functions of the eye and brain that contribute to visual perception. His work was often infused with surrealistic imagery which recalls the work of Francis Bacon. Howarth was also responsible for innovations in computer graphic art in the early 1980s working on the Telidon system as an artist in residence at UVic’s Engineering Department with Dr. Ernest Chang. He represented Canada with this work in the Sao Paulo Biennale and at Expo 86.

The Averted Eye Sees draws on UVic’s significant collection of Howarth paintings primarily from the Michael C. Williams estate, as well as Howarth’s writing, sketches, ephemera, and digital archive, part of the regional artists archive initiative of UVic Libraries Special Collections and Archives. It also includes a fascinating case study on the challenges of ‘retro-computing’ in recreating Howarth’s early experiments in digital artwork.

Due to the popularity of the exhibition on campus this summer, a second edition of this exhibition will be featured in the small gallery downtown, allowing for the viewing of a larger selection of Howarth’s powerful oeuvre.