Current exhibitions
In order for you to have a safe visit, we have developed a BC Restart Safety Plan.
Body Language: Reawakening Cultural Tattooing of the Northwest
Jan 12 - Apr 9, 2022
Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory
Curated by Dion Kaszas
Organized by the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art
Register for the Artist Talk | January 13, 2022
Body Language is about the reclamation of cultural tattooing in the Pacific Northwest. This exhibition takes an intimate look at historic and contemporary cultural tattooing from the perspectives of 5 Indigenous artists. Body Language explores designs on skin and their relationship to traditional clothing, rock art, jewelry, basketry and weaving to provide healing, protection and a sense of cultural knowledge and belonging.
Image credit: Aaron Leon, The Body Language artists during planning meetings at Whistler, 2017.
Derrumbeat
The Beat of Collapse
Jan 15 - Apr 9, 2022
Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory
Curated by Dr. Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier
In Spanish, derrumbar means to crumble away, to tumble down. Derrumbeat is a sonic collage accompanied by photos and video work created from the audio-visual traces left by falling rocks, pieces of wood, cement and ceramics collected in various abandoned sites in the capital of Cuba, Havana. Derrumbeat calls visitors to listen to the traces left by human passages and presence in an urban environment as time passes. It further encourages listeners to reflect on the rejuvenation of decay and the layers of meanings we can unearth in our own cities.
Image credit: Ained Cala, Derrumbeat.
Legacy Maltwood is located on campus at the Mearns Centre – McPherson Library
Eric Metcalfe: Pop Anthropology
Oct 23, 2021 - Oct 2, 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.
