Gallery Exhibits in Vancouver This Spring

With incredible pieces from artists of all backgrounds, these Metro Vancouver gallery exhibits are sure to educate in a beautiful way.

Bill Reid Gallery
Matriarchs Seen and Unseen
Exhibit Dates: April 4 – June 25, 2023
Details: Matriarchs Seen and Unseen is a solo exhibition featuring the work of Nuu-Chah-Nulth photographer Melody Charlie. Women are pillars in Indigenous communities everywhere. Aunties, mothers, and grandmothers lead their families and community members and while much of their work is celebrated, there are many unrecognized responsibilities. Melody Charlie’s photographs celebrate the work of all matriarchs and their wisdom, leadership, and strength. This exhibit holds over 20 powerful portraits of matriarchs within Melody’s own territory and across the province.

Massy Arts Society
a genocide laid bare
Exhibit Dates: March 21 – May 18, 2023
Details: Massy Arts is to host a genocide laid bare by secwe̓pemc & mixed settler interdisciplinary artist jaz whitford. The exhibit juxtaposes visual artwork with poetry as an invitation to discuss heritage, systemic aggression, and Indigenous history. Poem’s exploring themes of genocide, decolonization, identity, land, and resurgence created by Indigenous poets contrasted with whitford’s visual pieces.

Vancover Art Gallery
The Children Have to Hear Another Story
Exhibit Dates: April 7 – August 7, 2023
Details: Abenaki filmmaker and activist Alanis Obomaswin accessed public platforms to get across Indigenous stories and advance Indigenous concerns despite living in a dark period of history when social and political agency were more radically and systemically foreclosed for Indigenous peoples. Alanis Obomaswin’s The Children Have to Hear Another Story exhibits her lifework over the course of five decades in the form of cinema, showcasing her achievements in education, cinema, music, and activism that have moved Indigenous voices and ideas to transform society.

Richmond Art Gallery
Home
Exhibition Dates: January 13 – May 2, 2023
Details: A series 3 acrylic paintings showcasing Karen Leon’s background in Ecuador tied in with memories of her childhood growing up in Richmond. Karen Leon aims to make space for anyone who recognizes their culture in her works elements as growing up in Canada, there was a lack of representation for Latin American culture for her. Home captures Karen Leon’s childhood neighbourhood before it is changed due to gentrification.

Surrey Art Gallery
Autumn Strawberry
Exhibition Dates: December 9, 2022 – May 7, 2023
Details: A hybrid multilayered piece, Autumn Strawberry by Cindy Mochizuki combines performances with scenes from the artist’s handmade animations and sculptural elements. Cindy Mochizuki and choreographer Lisa Mariko Gelley worked with descendants of Japanese Canadian families who owned farms in the lower mainland before they were displaced to internment camps and their land was taken away. These recordings of movement draw upon inter-generational memory. See also: How Strawberry Hill Got Its Name

Vancouver Maritime Museum
Souls Ignited
Exhibition Dates: October 22, 2022 – April 30, 2023
Details: A multi-year project by photographer Cora Devos, Souls Ignited captures Inuk women and their markings. The art of tattooing being stolen from Inuit culture through colonization, DeVos is celebrating women and their reclaimed skin. Across generations of mothers, daughters, and sisters, each woman’s tattoo shares a story of her life, identity, and culture.

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