“You Took, Took, Took”: Alanis Obomsawin’s Work is Never Finished
In 1969, the young Abenaki singer and activist Alanis Obomsawin, newly hired as a consultant at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), took…
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“We’re All Tied to the Place That We’re From”: Celebrating 50 Years with Equinox Gallery
When Equinox Gallery—one of Canada’s best-established galleries, and a longstanding benchmark of Vancouver’s art scene—announced its 50th anniversary, earlier this year, I did a…
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Situating Great Ocean Art in Canadian Museums
I come from the villages of Leulumoega, Siʻumu, Salelologa and Āpia in the western islands of the Sāmoan archipelago. My family also comes from…
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Chance Elements: On Wayne Ngan (1937-2020)
Six years ago, while browsing in Nanaimo, British Columbia’s Value Village, a black vase with gold highlights caught my attention from across two aisles….
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Looking Out from Looking In: Geneviève Cadieux Shifts From the Polemic to the Poetic
Milling through the Vancouver Art Gallery earlier this spring, I stopped before a towering diptych that paired a cartoon prince and a back-turned nude….
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The Material Undoings of Kelly Lycan
During a month of dispiriting world news, the work first struck me as a room in mourning: an emptiness indifferent to being filled. White…
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Vancouver Art Gallery’s “MashUp” Too Limited in its Understanding
The Vancouver Art Gallery’s survey exhibition MashUp is a missed opportunity. To be clear, that’s not because the artworks are “bad” (they’re not) or…
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“Accessibility” and the New Hoser Aesthetics
It’s autumn, in Edmonton. A crowd begins to gather outside an enclosed asphalt rink where bodies will soon be pressed against each other. It’s…
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Playing the Double Agent: Kathleen Ritter’s “Camoufleurs”
Kathleen Ritter is an artist. This may come as a surprise to some who knew her better as associate curator at the Vancouver Art…
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