ORIGIN STORIES OF A FAMILY NATURE

By Cheryl L’Hirondelle

kinanāskomitinawaw – thank you to the lək̓ʷəŋən People, whose land the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria is on and whose language and stories engage with this place more eloquently and accurately than these words and this short story can ever hope to. Regardless, thank you to the dedicated and caring AGGV staff and curator Jaimie Isaac for inviting me to share.

EXPLORING FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION WITH KEMI CRAIG

Over the last few months, local film and dance artist, Kemi Craig (also Victoria’s newly selected Artist in Residence, 2022/24) has been hosting the Blackspace Sci-Fi Club at the AGGV. This exciting in-person series has been unfolding in conjunction with Kemi’s AGGV project Blueprints for the Afrofuture, which has (so far) featured a variety of virtual offerings and one in-person evening of sound and music with Hidden Variable.

Intimate Pedagogies in the Feminist Art Field School

By Dani Neira

I took the Feminist Art Field School from my kitchen table. I’d watch the weekly conversation as I cooked myself spaghetti, have my morning coffee during our synchronous Thursday sessions, and talk lesbian haunted houses over drinks with friends. My kitchen table, a place I associate with nourishment, care, and conversation, became the intimate space through which I learned.

School Workshop, Snapshot: Mandalas, Music and Movement

By Alex Chen

“I don’t sing.” That’s what a majority of students admitted to me during a school workshop.  However, perhaps to their surprise, by the end of our hour-long workshop, the students were not only using their voices and bodies to make art, they were taking chances expressing their artistic observations, collaborating with their peers, and having fun doing so! In this year’s iteration of the AGGV’s School Workshops, spanning October to December, Jennifer Van de Pol (AGGV Educator for School and Family Programs), a class of UVic Indigenous Education Students headed by Dr. Carmen Rodriguez de France, and myself visited young learners in schools across the Greater Victoria Area to delve into the works by local visual artist Dylan Thomas (Qwul’thilum) as well as my own artistic practice as a classical musician and opera artist in Victoria.

Collective Grief, Collective Futures: Finding a Community

By Regan Shrumm, Assistant Curator, AGGV and Amy Smith, Community Engagement Coordinator, Legacy Art Gallery

For three Sundays in October, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and the Legacy Art Galleries held Collective Grief, Collective Futures. This series of discussions gave space for emerging artists to grief the losses that have been experienced during the pandemic and discuss methods of adapting to share a creative future.