Urban Regalia is an exhibition that unfolds in two movements at the Legacy Gallery Downtown. Curated by Carolyn Butler Palmer (Associate Professor, UVic Art History and Visual Studies), the first movement Contemporary Fashion by Sug-ii-t LukxsDesign features Gitxsan designer Yolonda Skelton’s work, which mixes the aesthetics of Gitxsan button blanket robes with a twist of Audrey Hepburn’s style. The second movement opens in January 2020 and will be curated by Dr. Butler Palmer’s students and feature the button blankets of Ms. Skelton’s students at Westshore Centre for Learning and Training-Colwood Campus.
Curated by Lorilee Wastasecoot (BC Arts Council Curatorial Intern)
We Carry Our Ancestors weaves together generations of Indigenous women through cedar basketry. For the first time ever, Legacy Art Galleries will exhibit Nuu-chah-nulth and Salish historical baskets from the collection alongside portraits of weavers including Alice Paul, Rosie Ross, Mary Jane Jackson, Mathilda Jim, Julianna Williams, Liz Happynook, Lena Jumbo and Ellen Jumbo by documentary photographer Ulli Steltzer. Contemporary baskets by Salish artists Angela Marston and Brenda Crabtree, among others, will also be exhibited. Through new and intensive community research, this exhibition honours the resilience of women who have carried their cultures forward by passing down the art of cedar basketry to future generations.
Image: Ulli Steltzer, Alice Paul, 1975, Gift of Ulli Steltzer.
Programs & Events
Cedar Weaving Workshop With Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ weavers Rose & Brian Wilson
COST – Admission is always free | Weaving kits are between $15-$30. All proceeds go to the artists. Come overload your senses with the touch and smell of cedar while listening to weaver Rose Wilson and her son Brian from Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ First Nation share how they process, harvest and weave with cedar. Weave your own cedar bracelet, headband or small basket. No previous weaving experience necessary.
Join us for a tour, discussion and tea with curator Lorilee Wastasecoot to respectfully close We Carry Our Ancestors.
By Bus – Sacred Cedar: History, Art and the Land
Land Based Workshop with Sarah Jim and Tiffany Joseph
Saturday, Oct. 19 | 9:15 am to 2:30 pm | *return time is approximate | Faceboook Event REQUIRES REGISTRATION To register, please email legacy@uvic.ca | *Space is limited COST – $20 Students / $30 General Public/UVic Staff & Faculty | *Please bring cash ***Please arrive at 9:15 at Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St. | Lekwungen territory Curator Lorilee Wastasecoot will give a short introduction and tour of the exhibition We Carry Our Ancestors: Cedar, Baskets, and Our Relationships to the Land. _____________________ 10:00am – The bus will travel from Legacy Art Gallery Downtown to Todd Inlet or SṈIDȻEȽ to support the SṈIDȻEȽ Resiliency Project by contributing to the land restoration and cultural revitalization work of Tiffany Joseph and Sarah Jim. We will gather and spend time on the land to talk about how XPȺ, which is SENĆOŦEN for cedar, is sacred and has been central to the way of life to the W̱SÁNEĆ people. Our co-hosts, Sarah Jim and Tiffany Joseph will talk about the significance of cedar through history, art, and contemporary relationships with cedar and explore the restoration strategies they contemplate in their work at SṈIDȻEȽ.
Tiffany Joseph is of ancestry is of Sḵx̱wu7mesh (Fresh Water people) and W̱SÁNEĆ (Saltwater people, Emerging people) peoples and she is a SENĆOŦEN Language & Culture Revitalization apprentice.
Sarah Jim is an emerging artist from W̱SÁNEĆ. Her ancestry is mixed but her roots are in Tseycum First Nation. She has developed her skills and interests further by attaining a BFA at Uvic. Due to her close relationship to the land, she has been making art that consists of local flora and fauna, Coast Salish elements, and dreamy landscapes. Sarah’s intense interest and love for W̱SÁNEĆ territory has taken her down a path that allows her to interact with the natural environment by learning about the native plants of the area and reflecting upon those interactions visually.
NOTE ***Please dress for the weather. We will be working outside so please be prepared for some physical activity with proper footwear, rain jacket and water bottle. ***We will have lunch together on the land so please bring yourself a bagged lunch and any snacks that you may need.
Victoria-born artist Myfanwy Pavelic (1916-2007) was fascinated with the inner and outer dimensions of being human. Imbued with prescient human insights, and largely self-taught, she created insightful and compelling portraits in pencil, collage, acrylic and oil.
In an exhibition that spans her entire career, guest curator Patricia Bovey explores how Pavelic’s keen observation, empathy and knowledge of anatomy allowed her to capture her subjects’ inner essence – fears, vulnerabilities and strengths – consistently revealing the tensions between within and without. Her self-portraits honestly convey her own inner explorations and she used this experience to probe the depths of celebrities including acclaimed violinist Yehudi Menuhin, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, and renowned actress Katharine Hepburn. Multilayered in feeling and expression, her works exude dignity, beauty and the depths of joy, sadness and despair.
Opening Celebration &Curator Talk – Saturday, May 25 | 2 – 4pm With Guest Curator, Patricia Bovey
Curator Talk with Patricia Bovey
Thursday, July 25 | 7pm
Myfanwy in Context – This illustrated talk will address the significance of Myfanwy Pavelic’s art and situate her visual acumen and accomplishments with portraits within the context of several major Canadian artists including Emily Carr, Paraskeva Clark, Vera Weatherbie and Molly Lamb Bobak.
Image: Jim Tanaka, 2019.
From Self-portraits to Selfies: The Psychology of Representing Self
Join Jim Tanaka, UVic Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Brain Sciences, at the Legacy Downtown for an interactive evening exploring the connections between Myfanwy Pavelic’s self portraits and our present day notion of selfies. Drawing on current ideas of what makes a good selfie and whether they can capture a person’s true essence, Jim will discuss the psychology of self portraiture and why we take selfies.
Charles Campbell and Farheen HaQ with Yuxwelupton Qwal’qaxala (Bradley Dick)
This collaborative project intersects our practices as visual artists, racialized bodies and guests on these territories. We ask the question: How does our creative work of making space for our voices and experience meet the ground and history here?
“What I see us recording is the movement of time and the way that the rock is not solid, and the way that it’s been cracked and formed and changed and it moves…”
“The effort we’re making to find our place on this land, to touch it and be grounded by it, also speaks to our ungrounding, to the places we’ve been disconnected from, where we no longer have a place.”
– Farheen & Charles in conversation
Opening Celebration
Friday July 26 | 7 pm Join us for the opening celebration of The Ground Above Us with artists Charles Campbell, Farheen HaQ and Yuxwelupton Qwal’qaxala (Bradley Dick). Refreshments will be provided!
IBPOC Meditation Night
Wednesday Sept. 11 | 7pm Join us for an evening of quiet reflection as we take in the exhibition The Ground Above Us and sit with intention and presence on Lkwungen territory. This meditation night is open to self identified Indigenous, Black and People of Colour. No meditation experience required. Some meditation cushions will be provided but please bring your own if you are able.
Farheen HaQ, Charles Campbell and Yuxwelupton Qwal’qaxala (Bradley Dick)
Closing Conversation
Thursday Sept. 12 | 7 – 9pm Join Farheen HaQ, Charles Campbell and Yuxwelupton Qwal’qaxala (Bradley Dick) in conversation as they speak about their process, lessons learned, and using art as a vehicle to deepen friendships and come into better relation with the lands of the Lkwungen people.
With support from the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
Art by women is under-represented in most public collections and exhibitions. How can this be changed and how is it changing at the Legacy? Women Artists, Changing Collections: Recent Acquisitions presents works by women that are new to UVic’s Legacy Art Galleries’ collection. These artists come from diverse backgrounds, have multiple inspirations and help viewers to see from unique perspectives.
Legacy’s mission is to promote dialogue around issues that matter, leading the gallery to feature art and exhibitions by Indigenous women, women of colour, and gender-diverse artists. This exhibition aims to highlight the possibilities, difficulties and importance of presenting works by under-recognized groups.
Featured artists include Pitseolak Ashoona, Eva Campbell, Pnina Granirer, Angela Marston, Meryl McMaster, Carol Moiseiwitsch, Ellen Neel, Lou-ann Neel, Susan Point, Mary Pratt, Jennifer Stillwell, Marika Echachis Swan, and Jennifer Waelti Walters. The exhibition is curated by Young Canada Works intern Bradley Clements (MA, 2018) with BC Arts Council intern Lorilee Wastasecoot, (BA, 2018).
This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada.
Curators Tour and Discussion – With Guest Curators Bradley Clements and Lorilee Wastasecoot
Join us for an evening of shared discussion with Kwakwaka’wakw artist and RBCM Repatriation Specialist, Lou-ann Neel and UVic Legacy Galleries Curatorial Intern, Lorilee Wastasecoot. The discussion will address the intersectional nature of working with museum and gallery collections. How can we move forward to better represent marginalized communities and better care for Indigenous art and material culture? Lou-ann and Lorilee will share how they are working to improve museum practices in order to strengthen relationships with Indigenous peoples, support cultural revitalization and build community.
Translations showcases the movement of ideas, aesthetics, politics, and people between England, Japan, and Victoria, Canada, by looking at the life and work of Anglo-Japanese artist Elizabeth Yeend Duer (1889–1951). Born a British citizen in Nagasaki to an Englishman and a Japanese woman, Duer studied Nihonga, a traditional Japanese-style painting, with the renowned painter and teacher Atomi Gyokushi 跡見 玉枝. Duer took on the artistic identity of Gyokushō 玉蕉. She immigrated to Victoria in 1940 and is among the remarkably few people of Japanese heritage who were not interned during World War II. Instead, she Japanized her new environment by producing Nihonga-style paintings of local indigenous wildflowers while her own identity was being anglicized.
Co-curators: Carolyn Butler Palmer, Legacy Chair in Modern and Contemporary Art of the Pacific Northwest, Art History & Visual Studies, University of Victoria; Mikiko Hirayama Associate Professor of Asian Art History and Director of Asian Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Cincinnati; and Janice Okada, B.A., M.M.St.
A project of the Williams Legacy Chair in Modern and Contemporary Art of the Pacific Northwest.
Image:Kamass Camassia quamash; Camas, Elizabeth Yeend Duer—Gyokushō 玉蕉, 1941.
Events
Curators Tour
Saturday, February 2, 2019 | 2PM
Join Williams Legacy Chair Carolyn Butler Palmer (Associate Professor, UVic Art History and Visual Studies) and exhibition co-curator Janice Okada (B.A., M.M.St) to learn more about the exhibition and Elizabeth Duer’s fascinating story.
This symposium examines intersections between Victoria, England and Japan from the late nineteenth century to the 1950s on a range of topics including Japan’s influence in England, the history of Japanese Gardens in Victoria, artist travellers to Japan, Japanese-Canadians and internment in British Columbia, interracial families in Japan, and Duer’s life, wildflower paintings, and ethnobotany.
We are excited to welcome Vancouver-based artist Cindy Mochizuki to the Legacy Gallery this March! Join Mochizuki in a collective embroidery and listening experience focusing on the historical and contemporary racialized experiences of women of Japanese Canadian and Japanese descent in British Columbia. Mochizuki’s project responds to the Legacy Gallery’s current exhibition Translations: The Art and Life of Elizabeth Yeend Duer—Gyokushō 玉蕉.
Image:105 Chrysanthemums, as part of 13 Ways to Summon Ghosts at the Gordon Smith Gallery North Vancouver, photo credit: SITE photography, 2017.
Join us at the Legacy Downtown for a beginner ikebana workshop and learn the Basic Upright Style Moribana, one of two styles that are the foundation for all Japanese flower arranging. The workshop will take place amid the beautiful watercolour paintings of Victoria wildflowers by Elizabeth Duer—Gyokushō 玉蕉.
Container, kenzan and plant materials will be provided so you can continue to create beautiful arrangements at home. Please bring a pair of clippers and a bag to carry the container and kenzan.
Amanda Gaunt is a teacher in the Sogetsu School of Ikebana. She studied in Japan for more than 12 years.
This 39th annual Art Education faculty exhibition presents the creative explorations of 19 UVic artist-educators, researching the relationships between the field of art education, their studio practice and teaching.
The BC school curriculum recently underwent significant change across all subject areas and grade levels. The new curriculum is in many ways modeled after studio art practice and focuses less on rote facts and more on “Big Ideas.” Through processes of inquiry, students are challenged to engage with core competencies of communication, creative thinking, critical thinking, personal awareness and responsibility, positive personal and cultural identity and social responsibility.
Each artist’s work can be viewed as research through making. Links are made between the craft, materials, concepts and philosophies of individual Art Educators and the “Big Ideas” articulated in the BC Art Education Curriculum. Viewers are invited to discover the patterns that emerge across the works of these creative colleagues that reflect directions in the field of art education that will prepare their pre-service students for the role of teaching in BC’s schools.
This exhibition is a celebration of Indigenous Laws as expressed through art. This ongoing project is a curated pairing of artists and legal thinkers, working in conversation with each other to create art and written work about Indigenous laws and the opportunities for their dynamic expression as part of Canadian society.
The Testify project invites dialogue that puts the idea of reconciliation into practice. It creates a space for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians to dream a way forward, which respects and reflects the diversity, strength and hope embodied within Indigenous traditions. The goal of Testify is to change the way society thinks about law and to challenge the absence of Indigenous laws in the landscape.
Events
Testify Opening Weekend |Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Saturday, September 29th
1 – 2:30pm | Kitchen Table Talk and Screening – Indigenous laws to protect children – with Halie Bruce and Nadya Kwandibens. Followed by a screening of the video triptych (Re)turning Home.
7 – 9pm | Gala Opening & Performances –Join us for refreshments and performances – Performances: Not a Juridical Terra Nullius, Testify Collective & (Il)legal: Let Us Live, Mariel Belanger
Sunday, September 30th
10 – 12pm | Bannock Brunch & Screening –Meet the artists and writers, and take part in a walkthrough description of the project. Followed by a screening of When a Heart Falls Into the River, Jade Baxter.
Friday, October 26th
7 – 9pm | Script Reading & Panel Discussion – Script reading of LNG/Boundary Bay screenplay, Justin Neal. Followed by land based law/learning panel discussion with Maxine Matilpi, Sarah Morales and Justin Neal.
Saturday, October 27th
1pm | Panel Discussion | Legacy Downtown – An Indigenous Law Response to the Boushie/Fontaine Verdicts – panel discussion with Gwaai Edenshaw, Robyn Gervais, Andrea Hilland and Ardith Walkem.
6 – 7pm | Panel Discussion | UVic Campus | Fraser Building (Law) – Indigenous Women and the Recovery of Laws about Protection and Crime – panel discussion with Halie Bruce, Nadya Kwandibens, Joanna Recalma and Kali Spitzer.
8:30 – 10:30pm | Burlesque Performance | UVic Campus | Fraser Building (Law) – Rm. 159 – Virago Nation at Testify: Indigenous Burlesque in conjunction with images from Testify, celebrating the power of Indigenous Women/Law.
If you like design in wood, this exhibition is for you. In the past 30 years, the Fine Furniture program at Camosun College has produced over 500 graduates, many of which have gone on to contribute to the furniture-making industry on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. Thirty-seven of these exceptional artists have been invited to create new works that celebrate the process of designing and building seating, a foundational component and tradition of the program.
The UVic Legacy Galleries has a longstanding relationship with the instructors and students of the program including hosting the first exhibition of local furniture-makers in 1982, which helped to found the Vancouver Island Woodworkers Guild and the renowned Camosun program. Visit us and get inspired by the latest in local furniture design!
Image: Cam Russell, Morning Coffee in the Sun – Afternoon Tea in the Shade, White Oak and Bicycle Parts, 2018.
Programming:
The Chair Experience
An interactive tour with curators Ken Guenter and Cam Russell
Thurs. August 9, 2018 | 5 – 6pm
Thurs. August 23, 2018 | 7 – 8pm
Join the curators from Making It: A Celebration of 30 Years of the Camosun College Fine Furniture Program to learn about furniture design in wood by west coast designers. This tour will have you moving around the exhibition to take a closer look and — in a bold move to bust museum stereotypes — to actually sit on a few of the innovative pieces in the show.
Performance
Open Action Collective Founders live performance in Making It
Performance artists and founding members of Victoria’s Open Action Collective, John G. Boehme, Judith Price and Grace Salez will perform live at the Legacy Gallery in the exhibition Making It. Join us during Victoria’s Integrate Arts Festival as they respond to 36 chairs designed and built by local woodworkers.
OPEN ACTION is a collective of performance artists based in Victoria, BC, Canada, dedicated to site-specific actions performed in public spaces. The first action was in June, 2010.
OPEN ACTION is comprised of an event that occurs once a month at a randomly selected location for a determined amount of time in and around the Capital Regional District (CRD) of Victoria, British Columbia.
OPEN ACTION is a free laboratory and all are welcome to participate.
John G. Boehme identifies as a cisgender white male settler of German and Scottish heritage and is an un-invited guest from the Kumeyaay territory now known as La Jolla and currently is an un-invited guest on the Lekwungen/Esquimalt, Songhees W?SÁNE? territory currently known as Victoria. His early art practice included painting, sculpture, performance video and digital technology, installation and photography. Boehme describes recent work as “trans-disciplinary” often employing performance, video, audio and objects in a number pieces simultaneously, Boehme is not constrained to any particular creative mode and therefore utilizes integrated approaches to realize the work. John continues to have exhibitions, screenings and participate in festivals across Canada, Australia, the Americas, United Kingdom, Europe and China. John is and Artist and Educator, teaching Performance Art, Ceramics and Sculpture as a continuing faculty of the Visual Arts Department at Camosun College.
Judith Price has maintained a transdisciplinary art practice for over 29 years since attending the University of British Columbia. (MFA1988). She also has a 30+ year background in modern dance. Her body of work includes performance pieces, performative videos, video installations, site-specific installations and short films. She merges parallel backgrounds in visual arts and modern dance to explore non-verbal physical and gestural language as tools of communication and intervention. She has participated in exhibitions, performance festivals, screenings, and symposiums and has both participated in and conducted workshops (most recently on performative video). The British Columbia Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the City of Victoria have funded her works and they have been shown nationally and internationally.
Her performances display her ongoing exploration of site-specific street actions, interventions, and interactive, collaborative and durational works. She has also done many solo performances in galleries and at festival events, which have included still images and video projections, found objects and sculptural objects. She also incorporates perfomance and video into installations.
Price lives on Vancouver Island where she is retired from teaching post-secondary courses in time-based art (performance, video, film) and visual culture. Judith is an uninvited guest on the Lekwungen/Esquimalt, Songhees W?SÁNE? territory currently known as Victoria.
Grace Salez has been engaged in a multi disciplinary art practice since graduating from Emily Carr University of Art + Design (BFA1998). Her body of work includes short unconventional films & videos, video installations, performance art, and documentation of artists and their practice. Grace’s art activities/processes are interventions into the ever-changing fabric of public/private space and public/private life. Her intention as an artist is to draw in the viewer to witness the work, and for the witness to create new unpredictable understanding of their experience of viewing work done by an artist – have the viewer challenge our collective perceptions, perspectives and assumptions. Her work has been seen in various venues: film/video festivals, art galleries, art non-profit spaces, museums, in public spaces, and in print. Grace is an un-invited guest on the Lekwungen/Esquimalt, Songhees W?SÁNE? territory currently known as Victoria.
This exhibition focuses on the notion of relationship mîyo-wîcehtowin or good/beautiful relationship. Some pieces tell stories of relationships that have been formed and maintained since the Beginning and which continue to develop to this day. Other pieces show the formation of new relationships based on respect and kinship, while still others reflect the interconnectedness of all things.
By better understanding the ways in which relationships function in our everyday lives, we can learn how to create and maintain mîyo-wîcehtowin on Turtle Island.
Image:The Dance of Life and Death, Abraham Apakark Anghik Ruben, n.d.
We acknowledge the support Young Canada Works at Building Careers in Heritage
Serigraph prints from the UVic Legacy Art Galleries
Guest curated by Jackson McDermott (Dene/Cree), organised by Wyatt Schiefelbein
On until the end of August, 2018
First Peoples House, UVic Campus
This exhibition of serigraph prints was created in response to the Government of Canada’s celebration of 150 years since Confederation. It is intended to acknowledge a much longer history by presenting Indigenous narratives that move beyond limited settler versions of the history of where we live and where we come from. Through serigraph prints chosen by guest curator, Jackson McDermott (Dene/Cree) from the Fort Nelson First Nation, this exhibition explores centuries-old stories that continue to live in the people, communities, nations and lands of this place.
Image: Kwaht-Yaht is Born, Art Thompson (Tsa Qwa Supp), 1989.
Curated by Caroline Riedel, Legacy Art Galleries, UVic.
The Malahat Review one of Canada’s most iconic and long-standing literary journals. In its fifty-year run, its pages have featured the work of established writers, emerging talent and critical essays on both literature and the visual arts. The synergy between art and literature is particularly evident in the cover art and essays of the journal’s first decade, which presented new work by internationally acclaimed artists such as Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein. These prestigious contributors were followed by the gradual introduction of west coast Canadian artists who at the time were making their mark on the emerging modern art scene of Victoria and Vancouver in the 60s and 70s. Thereafter, Canadian artists were equated with the visual identity of the magazine.
This exhibition pays tribute to the role of art in the journal – selected from 200 cover images over the past 50 years- and focuses in particular on works from the journal’s home institution, the collection of the University of Victoria. Featured artists include Maxwell Bates, Robert De Castro, Glenn Howarth, P.K. Irwin, Davidee Kavik, Jack Kidder, Tony Hunt Sr., Elza Mayhew, Eric Metcalfe, Myfanwy Pavelic, Margaret Peterson, Bill Reid, and Gordon A. Smith.
Commemorative limited-edition publication The Malahat Review at Fifty: Canada’s Iconic Literary Journal
The limited-edition monograph highlights The Malahat’s achievements while looking forward to the future, and is richly illustrated with archival material from UVic Special Collections and University Archives and art from the UVic Legacy Art Galleries’ collection. Essays, critical commentaries and memoirs were provided by past and present editors, contributors and editorial board members—as well as nationally prominent writers with long associations with the journal—including Jan Martel and UVic Chancellor Shelagh Rogers, as well as Phillip Kevin Paul, Derk Wynand, Eve Joseph, Jay Ruzesky, Jan Zwicky and others.
July 14 – Sept. 22, 2018
The Chair Experience
Performance
Serigraph prints from the UVic Legacy Art Galleries
January 25 – August, 2018