Upcoming exhibitions

Legacy Downtown
Legacy Maltwood
First Peoples House

DIS – displaced, dispersed, dispossessed

Sept 16 – Dec 5, 2026

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen Territory

Curated by Sherri Shinobu Kajiwara, Director/Curator at the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre, Burnaby, BC with support from her Past Wrongs Future Choices project curatorial team: Ciel Dong, Naomi Keenan O’Shea, Sarah Stillwell, and Lesley Marshall.

DIS – displaced, dispersed, dispossessed pairs concurrent group exhibits at the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre and the University of Victoria Legacy Art Gallery, bringing together work from contemporary artists exploring the lasting influence of the Second World War on Nikkei communities globally.

Through installation, video, sculpture-informed 2D/3D work, performance, illustration, and text-based practices, participating artists engage inherited memory, cultural continuity, and intergenerational experience.

Artists:

TWO EXHIBITIONS:

University of Victoria Legacy Gallery, Victoria, BC – Sept 16 – Dec 5, 2026

Artists from the Past Wrongs Future Choices artists and scholars residency programs at the University of Victoria.

Karasawa Gallery, NNMCC, Burnaby, BC – Sept 19, 2026 – Feb 28, 2027

Japanese Canadian artists reflecting on the enduring impact of the 1940s uprooting and dispossession and its continuing influence on identity, memory, and artistic practice.

SAVE THE DATE:

Opening Reception - DIS – displaced, dispersed, dispossessed

Date: Sat., Sept 19, 2026
Time: 3:00 pm | Virtual Opening - 4 pm (Pacific Time)
Location: Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen Territory

Join us as we celebrate the opening of two concurrent group exhibits at the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre and the University of Victoria Legacy Art Gallery!

Image: ‘Repatriation’ to Japan, Slocan, British Columbia, c. 1946. Courtesy of the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre, Odamura Family Collection (1996.178.1.33.a-b).

This exhibition is made possible through funding from:

Howard Green Foundation | Lloyd Howard | Martin Bonham | Deux Mille Foundation

WARA-WARA

An Exhibition of Street Art and Graffiti from Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Sept 16 – Dec 5, 2026

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen Territory

WARA-WARA brings together 21 artists and four collectives from Yogyakarta, Indonesia, whose work has been shaped by the city's vibrant street art, graffiti, mural and comic communities. Taking its title from the Javanese term ‘wara-wara’ – an announcement, warning or public call – the exhibition explores artistic practice as a way of responding collectively to moments of social, political and environmental uncertainty.

Alongside the forthcoming exhibition in downtown Victoria, the project’s history and development may be explored online here.

Developed through a collaboration between Survive! Garage (Yogyakarta), the University of Victoria Art Collections and the participating artists and collectives, WARA-WARA presents paintings, drawings, prints and new site-responsive work alongside photographs and video documentation from the project's origins in Yogyakarta. Rather than treating the street simply as a site of protest, the exhibition highlights the relationships, conversations and shared practices that sustain artistic communities over time. Together, these works invite visitors to consider not only the calls sounded in times of crisis, but also how we choose to respond—with imagination, solidarity and a renewed sense of responsibility toward one another and to the wider world around us.

As one of WARA-WARA's organizers, Richard Fox (UVic, Pacific & Asian Studies) has worked closely with Patub Porx and Bayu Widodo, alongside the participating artists, collectives and wider community, to develop this project from its origins in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, to the current exhibition here in Victoria. His contribution has spanned conceptual and curatorial work, writing, editing, translation, and the collaborative coordination of the exhibition, catalogue, videos and public programs. Throughout, WARA-WARA has been a thoroughly collective undertaking, with Widodo, Porx and Fox working to connect its many parts while keeping the artists' practices, relationships and perspectives at its centre.

Artists

Adit Doodleman @aditdoodleman

Anagard @anagard_stcl @anagard_artchive

Bayu Widodo @bayuwdd

BirdPeace @birdpeace_

Digie Sigit @digiesigit

Farhan Siki @farhansiki @sikipecah

GETLUPS @getlups

Homepippa @homepippa

Ismu Ismoyo @ismuismoyo

LOKA @me.loka_

Medialegal @medialegal_ @medialegalstore

Minas @monicakristianto

Muck @muckizm

Neusone @neusneusss

Patub Porx @patub_porx @porx_shop

Reas @riskireas

Rolly LoveHateLove @ykcityking

Rune @rune_hsk

Samuel Indratma @samuel_indratma

Wimbo Praharso @wimbopraharso

Zent Prozent @zentprozent

Collectives

ABDW Art Project @abdwartproject

Graphic Victims @graphicvictims

Nyalakan! @nyalakanproject

Wayang Polah @wayangpolah

Image: ABDW Art Project, 2026.

WARA-WARA has been made possible through the generous support of the University of Victoria Art Collections, the Canadian Southeast Asian Studies Initiative (CSEASI), the Henry Luce Foundation and many partners, collaborators and supporters in both Canada and Indonesia.

This exhibition is made possible through funding from:

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Learning/Unlearning

Dates: September 2026 - June 2027

Location: Special Collections and University Archives, Room A005 | Mearns Centre for Learning – McPherson Library

University of Victoria | lək̓ʷəŋən Territory

Hours: 10:30am-4:30pm.

Note: The Legacy Maltwood Gallery is currently closed due to renovations

This exhibition explores how archivists, curators, faculty, and librarians collaborate with collections, students, and communities to create reciprocal teaching and learning experiences. Focusing on teaching across collections and with Indigenous belongings, it brings together objects not typically encountered alongside one another.

The exhibition examines collaboration as both method and subject, highlighting how instructors, students, artists, makers, and communities co-create knowledge. Through multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches, it reimagines collections as active sites of inquiry, dialogue, and exchange, fostering new connections, diverse perspectives, and multiple ways of knowing.

Image: Artist once known, Tsilhqot'in (Chilcotin), Imbricated Burden Basket, woven bear grass and cherry bark, U981.2.86. Gift of Commander and Mrs. A.J. Tullis to the University of Victoria Department of Anthropology, transferred to the University Art Collections in 1981. Photograph by Anahita Ranjbar.

This exhibition is supported in part by The UVic Libraries and Kula: Library Futures Academy Seed Fund and the BC Arts Council.

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Inuit art across three generations in the First Peoples House

Dates: November 15, 2026 - November 15, 2027

Location: First People’s House | UVic Campus - Lekwungen Territory

Drawn from the collection donated by Dr. Fred Wurlitzer, this exhibition curated by artist Uumati Kisoun-Inuarak, brings together drawings, paintings, textiles, and other works focused on Inuit artists of Kinngait (Cape Dorset, NU). The exhibition draws attention to the brilliance of modern Inuit art, bringing life, colour and the unique ideas, knowledge and ways of creating from the vast Arctic to the west coast.

The exhibition will feature beloved figures and icons such as Pitseolak Ashoona and Kenojuak Ashevak, phenomenal artists of our time including Ningeokuluk Teevee, Johnny Pootoogook, and Shuvinai Ashoona and more names to be further recognized and acclaimed.

Across the exhibition the drawings and prints capture figures, animals, scenes, spirits and details of everyday life, documenting the tremendous changes of the North from 1913 into the 2020s. Textiles included demonstrate the use of stitching, appliqué, and other techniques bringing life to fabric as forms of visual expression beyond “arts and crafts”. Together, the works offer insight into the different eras, mediums, and inherent life force through which Inuit have developed and sustained their artistic practices across time and place.

This exhibition provides an opportunity to look closely at these works and consider the knowledge, experiences, and spirit they carry. Through these voices this exhibition hopes to bring authentic representation, honour the strength of women in our culture holding up those who have led the way.

Image: ‘Untitled (Tracks), ᐸᓘᖅ ᓵᓪᒪᓖᐁᓕ (Padloo Samayualie). 2015. Gift of Dr. Fred Wurlitzer in memory of his wife Ann Allan-Wurlitzer.