Current exhibitions
In order for you to have a safe visit, we have developed a BC Restart Safety Plan.
Qw'an Qw'anakwal -
To Come Together
September 29 - December 23, 2021
Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory
Visit the exhibition website
Curated by Andrea Walsh, Smyth Chair in Arts and Engagement
Qw'an Qw'anakwal - To Come Together is the 10th anniversary celebration of the Visiting Artist Program hosted by the Department of Anthropology at the University of Victoria. The exhibition features new works by 12 artists and their collaborators from Salish nations on Vancouver Island, who have participated in the Visiting Artist Program since 2010. The exhibition features knitting, wool and cedar weaving, carving, drawing, and painting.
Image credit: Amanda Laliberte, 2021.
Ungasittuq - Something that is Far Away
A project by Barry Pottle
October 7 - December 23, 2021
Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Inner gallery
Lekwungen territory
Ungasittuq is an exploration of distance, space, acceptance and pushing boundaries. This exhibition aims to build a foundation for contemporary urban Inuit art photography within the broader popular understanding of contemporary Inuit art. Recent photographs by Barry Pottle present a counterpoint and complement to sculpture, drawings, and prints by Inuit artists to give a broader understanding of contemporary realities and experience.
Image credit: Barry Pottle, UNGAVA (detail), 2021.
Legacy Maltwood is located on campus at the Mearns Centre – McPherson Library
Eric Metcalfe: Pop Anthropology
Oct 23, 2021 - Mar 27, 2022
Legacy Maltwood Gallery | On campus in the Mearns Centre – McPherson Library
Lekwungen territory
Curated by Dorian Jesse Fraser, Doctoral Candidate, Concordia University (UVic MA, 2013).
Watch: Pop Goes the Art! Curator Talk
Read: West Coast Modernism and the Pop Sauvage of Eric Metcalfe, essay by Dorian Jesse Fraser
Pop Anthropology is an exhibition of multimedia artist Eric Metcalfe’s oeuvre, spanning over sixty years, in celebration of the artist’s honorary doctorate from UVic (UVic DFA 2021, BFA 1970). This exhibition continues the playful and charged work of Metcalfe’s life: reimagining images, tropes and stereotypes as poignant and plentiful scraps from which to pull meaning. It honours his early development as a student in Visual Arts at the University of Victoria in the early 1970s, as well as his lifetime achievements as a pioneer in performance art in western Canada and co-founder of the Western Front, one of Canada’s leading and longest running artist run centres.
Image credit: Eric Metcalfe, Untitled, 1967, gouache and watercolour on paper.
Located on campus, First Peoples House displays artwork from the university's collection through rotating exhibitions.
For Time Immemorial
Ongoing
First Peoples House | UVic Campus
Lekwungen territory
8:30 am to 4:30 pm Monday to Friday
Visitors are permitted to view the exhibition but must follow COVID-19 protocols.
Curated by Mel Granley (Metis), Young Canada Works Intern
with lessLIE (Coast Salish artist)
2020 marks the ten-year anniversary of the First Peoples House. This exhibition focuses on Coast Salish title and relationship to land and how this is communicated through art.
In doing a write up for this exhibition I felt a certain level of trepidation that my voice as a Métis and settler person would be inadequate, inappropriate, or too loud, and so I am extremely thankful and humbled to have the words of artist lessLIE to take precedence over mine. If you are non-Indigenous or not Coast Salish my hope is that this exhibition will encourage you to consider your position on these lands, what brought you here, and your responsibilities to the Coast Salish peoples who have tended to this land for time immemorial. Hiy-hiy!
- Melissa Granley
This continuum of Coast Salish art and artists is a visual means for acknowledging Salish territory… Such a geographical acknowledgement of traditional territories is vital in the 21st century. Most North Americans know the anxiety of protecting land from terrorism and nuclear bombs. In an era of Wet'suwet'en Solidarity and of COVID-19, the acknowledgement of land is vital to the future of humanity.
- lessLIE
Featured artists include Margaret August, Butch Dick, TEMOSEN Charles Elliott, Jordanna George (UVic Alumni, BFA '19), Stan Greene, Edward Joe, Maynard Johnny Jr., Sarah Jim (UVic Alumni, BFA '19), lessLIE, Sage Paul, Andy Peterson, Susan Point, Manuel Salazar, Dylan Thomas.
Image: Jordanna George, Motherboard, 2020.
This program is generously funded in part by the Salish Weave Collection.
