It’s the final weekend of Spring Break around Metro Vancouver, with your last chance to visit Burnaby Village Museum this season (on Friday). However, several attractions are continuing their deals and special events through to the end of the month as well so check out what’s happening around Vancouver this weekend – and beyond:
Events in Vancouver This Weekend March 24-26, 2023
With incredible pieces from artists of all backgrounds, these Metro Vancouver gallery exhibits are sure to educate in a beautiful way.
Gallery Exhibits in Vancouver This Spring
Alanis Obomsawin, Courtesy York University Libraries
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.
Karen Leon, Home pt. 2, 2021, acrylic on canvas
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 Ignitedcaptures 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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by Rebecca BollwittDisclosure: Sponsored Post — Sponsored by the City of Richmond Please review the Policy & Disclosure section for further information.
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Celebrate the season at the Richmond Cherry Blossom Festival, taking place April 2nd at Garry Point Park in Steveston. Returning to an in-person festival for the first time since 2019, there will be free fun for the whole family under the splendour of the blossom canopy.
Richmond Cherry Blossom Festival – Photo submitted
Richmond Cherry Blossom Festival
Visitors can immerse themselves in the sights, sounds, and scents of this stunning natural phenomenon while celebrating Japanese culture and the ephemeral beauty of the blooms.
When: Sunday, April 2, 2023 from 11:00am to 4:00pm
Where: Garry Point Park in Steveston (12011 Seventh Ave, Richmond)
Performances and demonstrations on the main stage in the Sakura Tent, including welcome messages from Mayor Brodie, Consul General Kohei Maruyama, the Consul General of Japan in Vancouver, and the festival directors, as well as performances by taiko drummers, folk song singers and dancers.
The Matsuri Tent which features calligraphy, bonsai and origami demonstrations and displays from local artisans, as well as the opportunity to experience the beauty and ritual of a traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony.
The Chibi-Chan Tent which will provide children of all ages the chance to learn how to fold origami creatures using special Japanese papers and techniques.
Delicious fare from a variety of Japanese food trucks and vendors including Japadog, Wakwak Burger, Takeya Sushi, Teapressu Bubble Tea, and more!
There will also be a complimentary shuttle service to easily get from parking to the festivities. Details are available on the festival website.
About the Festival
The festival was established in 2017 to showcase the splendor of the 255 Akebono cherry trees in Garry Point Park and to celebrate the generous donation of those trees to the city from the BC Wakayama Kenjin Kai, the Wakayama Prefectural Association. The association supports the legacy and heritage of Japanese families that immigrated to Steveston from Wakayama Prefecture in Japan. This year’s festival also recognizes the 50th anniversary of Richmond’s Sister City relationship with Wakayama.
Springtime in Vancouver marks the return of the iconic Pacific Great Blue Heron colony. For their 23rd consecutive year, the 64-strong heron colony has made its way high above Park Lane in Stanley Park to raise the newest generation.
Photo: Greg Hart / SPES.
Herons in Stanley Park
Last year the colony brought approximately 90 new heron chicks into the world, overcoming persistent eagle raids and a late nesting season, due to more severe winter weather. Throughout these challenges, this heron colony has proven to be above all else, resilient. With 80 per cent of British Columbia’s great blue heron population found in and around the Fraser River, the productivity of this heronry has signification implications for the viability of the whole subspecies.
Now in its eighth year, the Heron Cam provides the ultimate close-up view of this remarkable species as they go about their daily rituals, including courtship and mating, nest building, egg laying, and of course, hatching! Viewers can access a birds-eye view of the 40 nests and even take control of the camera by zooming in on multiple nests, using different angles. Witness the chicks take their first tentative steps by viewing the Stanley Park Heron Cam online.
Heron Coexistence
To ensure herons are given space to nest and raise their young peacefully, between mid-March to mid-July, visitors should:
Observe herons from outside of fenced areas
Avoid making loud noises of playing amplified music within 30 metres of the colony
Keep dogs on-leash
Refrain from flying drones; drones are not allowed in parks without a permit, and should strictly not be flown around nesting birds
Report a fallen or injured chick via the Van311 app or by calling 311; please do not handle any injured wildlife
Stanley Park Heron Cam
Pacific Great Blue Herons were first documented in Stanley Park in 1921. Since then, the colony has changed nesting locations several times before settling in its current location in 2001. Vancouver is proudly one of North America’s largest urban heron colonies.
Pacific Great Blue Herons are federally protected and classified as of ‘special concern’ in British Columbia. The population of these herons has declined steadily since the 1980s as a result of nesting failure, eagle attacks, human disturbance and habitat loss. In Canada, there are around 4-5,000 nesting adults, with the majority living around the Salish Sea. Pacific Great Blue Herons are also unique in that they do not migrate as most great blue herons do.
Working in conjunction with the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation and the Canadian Wildlife Service, the Stanley Park Ecology Society (“SPES“) has been supporting herons in this urban environment and monitoring the heronry in Stanley Park since 2004.
Learn more about the history of the Pacific Great Blue Herons at Stanley Park here or by visiting the Vancouver Parks and Recreation website. To keep up to date with the herons activities and how to support the Stanley Park Ecology Society, visit them online.
Tickets for Coast Mental Health’s 25th anniversary Courage To Come Back Awards, presented by Wheaton Precious Metals, are now available. The event recognizes British Columbians who have overcome tremendous odds, yet selflessly give back to their communities.
Courage to Come Back Awards
When: Friday, June 9th, 2023
Cocktail reception at 5:15pm, event begins at 6:00pm
Where: Vancouver Convention Centre West (1055 Canada Pl, Vancouver)
Tickets: Available online now for $400 each with a $285 tax-deductible receipt. A table of 10 is $4,000 with a $2850 tax-deductible receipt
The awards will honour five recipients and raise funds for critical community mental health services and programming. Each and every single dollar raised at this event will make a difference to the lives of people living with mental illness. You provide critical programs and services to your neighbours in need.
Coast Mental Health – an independent registered charity – is the largest provider of community-based services for people living with mental illness in British Columbia. Each year, many crucial programs are made possible through donors’ generous support of Coast Mental Health Foundation at the annual Courage To Come Back Awards – which has raised $22 million to date.
Your generosity provides outreach services, housing support, food security, mental health support for youth and adults, peer support services, training and employment and many other programs that are vital to the long-term recovery of vulnerable people living with mental illness.
Miss604 is a proud sponsor of the 2023 Courage To Come Back Awards
