Current exhibitions
In order for you to have a safe visit, we have developed a BC Restart Safety Plan.
On Beaded Ground
April 21 - September 18, 2021
Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory
Curated by Lorilee Wastasecoot (UVic BA '17)
On Beaded Ground explores the essential role of Indigenous artists' creative practices in the reclamation and renewal of culture, identity, stories and teachings. The beaded artworks in the exhibition carry stories. The materials, methods of making, designs and functions of beaded objects are languages particularly devised to transmit memories, legacies and narratives between people across time and space.
This selection of works reflects the current proliferation of artists beading on the West Coast and explores practices past and present. Featured artists include Margaret August (Coast Salish), Daphne Boyer (Métis), Cedar Circle Leadership Group, Whess Harman (Carrier Wit’at), Bev Koski (Anishinaabe), Lynette Lafontaine (Nehiyow/ Michif), Maxine Matilpi (Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw), Nicole Mandryk (Anishinaabe/Ukranian/Irish, UVic BA ‘19), Audie Murray (Michif), Teresa Vander Meer-Chasse (Upper Tanana), and Estrella Whetung (Anishinaabe, UVic PhD(C), MA ‘10, BA ‘08).
Image: Lynette La Fontaine, Two-Spirit Otipemisiwak Artist, Kokuminawak Sakihitowin Kayas Ochi (Grandmas’ Love From Long Ago), (naming credit: Dianne Ludwig), wool, seed beads, dyed caribou hair, dyed whitefish scales, 2021.
What the Land Holds
March 19 - June 16, 2021
Legacy Downtown Sidewalk Gallery| 630 Yates Street
Lekwungen territory
Tuesday – Saturday, 4:30pm – 10:00pm
Located outside on Broad Street side of Legacy Downtown
Curated by Nicole Achtymichuk (UVic BSc ’20, Young Canada Works Curatorial Intern)
What the Land Holds is a contemporary video art exhibition that examines the land as integral to Indigenous histories and futures, and as a site of ongoing colonization and alienation. The land holds layers of interpretation that establish places of inclusion and exclusion. The land holds what humans have created, blurring the lines between natural and artificial. The land holds stories and teachings, and returning to these is essential to our continued survival on the land.
This is the inaugural exhibition in Legacy’s new Sidewalk Gallery, a space designed to activate and inspire community collaborations and to make art more accessible to the public.
Legacy Maltwood is located on campus at the Mearns Centre – McPherson Library
The Legacy Maltwood Gallery is closed until further notice.
Located on campus, First Peoples House displays artwork from the university's collection through rotating exhibitions.
For Time Immemorial
September 8 2020 - December 4, 2021
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.
