Celebrating Black Futures at the Vancouver Art Gallery
The Vancouver Art Gallery presents Celebrating Black Futures, a month-long public program series that includes a variety of talks, performances, film screenings, and community-led conversations throughout February.
Celebrating Black Futures Black Futures at the Vancouver Art Gallery
In honour of Black History Month and in partnership with the Vancouver International Film Festival and The Black Arts Centre, the lineup includes:
Writing Workshop: We who have known tides
- Dates: Saturday February 7, 2026 from 11:00am to 1:00pm
- Location: Room 4East, Vancouver Art Gallery
- Tickets: Sold Out
Led by poet Junie Désil, this generative writing workshop unfolds in conversation with the exhibition We who have known tides: Indigenous Art from the Collection.
Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story
- Dates: Wednesday, February 11, 2026 at 6:20 PM
- Location: VIFF Centre, VIFF Cinema
- Tickets: Available online now
This feature documentary traces the life and legacy of Harlem-based photographer, activist and freedom fighter Kwame Brathwaite, whose images helped define the global “Black is Beautiful” movement. Drawing from a vast archive of more than 500,000 photographs, the film celebrates Black joy, style and community—from everyday street life to intimate portraits of cultural icons including Nina Simone, Muhammad Ali and Stevie Wonder. Radical in its time and resonant today, Black Is Beautiful is an uplifting and cinematic tribute to beauty and resistance.
Panel Discussion: Photography, Memory and Social Justice
- Dates: Saturday February 14, 2026 from 3:30pm to 5:00pm
- Location: Room 4East, Vancouver Art Gallery
- Tickets: Register online now
Presented in conjunction with Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama, this panel discussion brings together former Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizers Judy Richardson and Masaru Edmund Nakawatase, community advocate Kiyoko Judy Hanazawa, and moderator Dr. Desirée Valadares for a powerful conversation. The discussion traces a lineage of socially engaged photography—from Depression-era America and the work of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange to Tamio Wakayama’s photographic documentation of Japanese Canadian internment and racial injustice. Centering Wakayama’s work, panelists examine intersections between the Japanese Canadian Redress Movement and the US Civil Rights Movement, highlighting photography’s role in preserving memory, expressing resilience and documenting social struggle.
True North: Andy Milne in Concert + Film Premiere
- Dates: Saturday February 28, 2026 at 5:00pm & 8:15pm
- Location: VIFF Centre, VIFF Cinema
- Tickets: Available online now
Set in 1960s Montreal, True North centres on the 1969 student protests against racism at Montreal’s Concordia University (then known as Sir George Williams University) and their contribution to the story of Black liberation. The film is an electrifying history of Black Canada, a story of displacement and discrimination, prejudice and Black pride, from Freedom Road to Africville and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, fused from a mind-bogglingly rich cache of archival material, first person accounts and a remarkable score by celebrated jazz pianist Andy Milne.
The series fosters critical dialogue and creative exchange around the work of Black and African artists, locally and globally. By foregrounding diverse voices and lived experiences, Celebrating Black Futures deepens public understanding, challenges dominant narratives and builds meaningful connections between artists, audiences and broader cultural contexts. Follow the art gallery on Instagram for updates.
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