Current exhibitions
Legacy Downtown is located at 630 Yates Street, Victoria BC Canada.
Legacy Downtown is Open!
We are so excited to welcome you back into the downtown gallery to see our two new exhibitions.
Our new hours are:
Wednesday to Saturday: 10 - 4pm
In order for you to have a safe visit, we have developed a BC Restart Safety Plan.
To Fish As Formerly
A Story of Straits Salish Resurgence
June 17 - November 21, 2020
Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory
Watch the opening prayer and territory acknowledgement for this exhibition by Songhees Elder Frank George. Special thanks to Frank George for making this possible.
Check out our To Fish as Formerly Artist Interview series on our Youtube channel!
Curated by XEMŦOLTW̱ Dr. Nicholas Claxton, UVic, School of Child and Youth Care (UVic Alumni, BSc ’00, MA ’03, PhD '15) and Katie Hughes, UVic Department of History, graduate student (UVic Alumni, BA '06, Graduate Professional Certificate, Cultural Heritage Studies '17).
With artists: TEMOSEN Charles Elliott, J,SIṈTEN John Elliott, Chris Paul, Dylan Thomas, Sarah Jim (UVic Alumni, BFA '19), Temoseng, aka Chasz Elliott and Colton Hash (UVic Alumni, BSc ‘18).
To Fish as Formerly tells the story of the SX̱OLE (the Reef Net Fishery) through contemporary art, traditional knowledge and historical documentation. The exhibition shares the story of the efforts of generations of W̱SÁNEĆ people who are revitalizing the belief systems, spirituality, knowledge and practices inherent to the SX̱OLE.
To W̱SÁNEĆ (Saanich) people, the SX̱OLE is more than a fishing technology. Challenged with no substantial salmon bearing rivers in the territory, the W̱SÁNEĆ and other Straits Salish peoples developed a unique and sophisticated fishing technology that formed the basis for their way of life. Though the Douglas Treaty of 1852 promised that the W̱SÁNEĆ would be able to “fish as formerly”, the SX̱OLE was systematically reduced by colonial systems and finally was banned altogether in Canada in 1916. In recent years, XEMŦOLTW̱ Nicholas Claxton is undertaking community-based work that has brought new life to the restoration of the SX̱OLE that continues today. Through collaboration and reconnection with their U.S. based Xwelemi (Lummi) relatives, the W̱SÁNEĆ people fished using traditional reef net technology for the first time in more than 100 years.
Image: Temoseng aka Chasz Elliott, SHELIS - Life, 2020.
This program is generously funded in part by the Salish Weave Collection.
TUKTUUYAQTUUQ (Caribou Crossing)
Maureen Gruben
June 17 – November 14, 2020
Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St. | Inner Gallery
Lekwungen territory
We made a website for this installation - check it out here!
'Tuktuuyaqtuuq’ is the Inuvialuktun name of Maureen Gruben’s (UVic Alumni, BFA ‘12) home on the Arctic coast (known in English as 'Tuktoyaktuk'). It means, 'Looks Like a Caribou.’ The tuktu/caribou are integral to Inuvialuit life, providing food, clothes, tools, stories.
In TUKTUUYAQTUUQ, Gruben works with multiple facets of the animal: the translucent heart sac, the intricate patterning of bone seams on skulls that are reminiscent of waterways curving through the land. In her careful attention to life-sustaining physical elements, Gruben also traces the caribou’s vast immaterial presence in her culture.
Image: Maureen Gruben, 2020.
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, Stan Greene, Edward Joe, Maynard Johnny Jr., Sarah Jim, 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.
