Holding Ground, a personal reflection 1 year later

By Nabidu Taylor

Trigger Warning: Residential Schools, MMIGW&2S, graphic descriptions.

The Holding Ground exhibition at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (July 17 – Oct 17 2021) was an opportunity for Indigenous women and 2S people to come together as a collective to contribute our own personal perspectives on Indigenous resistance and current issues we are faced with today. I am very grateful for the group of beautiful, powerful and gentle individuals, I had the absolute pleasure and honour of collaborating with on this exhibition.

Reverberations: An Expansion on Mel Granley’s #WIP Podcast Episode

By Mel Granley, Guest Curator

A few months ago, in the historic Spencer Mansion where AGGV employees work, I set up my laptop and logged onto a Zoom call to record a #WIP Podcast episode between three artists from the exhibition Reverberations: Emily Geen, Estraven Lupino-Smith, and James Summer. For the next hour and a half, although we were each in our own rooms looking into a screen, we came together and had a vibrant and endearing conversation about how relationships influenced the show, our shared experiences as emerging art practitioners, and ideas of institutional memory.

10 Things To Know About Hanging Your Artwork

Did you purchase a piece of artwork at the recent TD Art Gallery Paint-In? Or perhaps you have framed canvases sitting on the floor of your home waiting to be hung. We have a few good tips for hanging your favourite art pieces!

Evoking Place: The Landscapes of Maud Lewis

By Dr. Laurie Dalton.

In exhibitions, press, and films about the artist, there has long been an emphasis on the fact that Maud Lewis never travelled far from the Yarmouth-Digby-Marshalltown corridor in western Nova Scotia. That she was a happy-go-lucky folk painter, not artistically trained, and one that merely painted “happy little pictures” for passers-by and tourists. This does not give much room for looking at her paintings as objects of art, and as being part of the wider economic, social, and visual culture of the time – which is the focus of the book.

In the Present Moment: Memories and Another Milestone!

By Marina DiMaio, Digital & Print Assets Coordinator.

Back in 2018, pretty much fresh out of grad school, I found myself at the beginning of my very first job at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Through my own multidisciplinary art making, I’ve always been interested in contemplative practices, and the idea of creative process as spiritual practice. So, with the support of an Early Career Development Grant from the BC Arts Council, I had the incredible opportunity to extend and deepen the artistic research that I began exploring as an MFA student at UVic by contributing as a curatorial assistant at the AGGV to a multiphase project, by curator Haema Sivanesan, considering Buddhism as an artistic methodology.

Reflecting on National Indigenous Peoples Day

By Mel Granley, Guest Curator at the AGGV.

June is recognized as National Indigenous History Month. National Indigenous Peoples Day is a holiday celebrated in Canada every year on the 21st of June. This holiday was officially established in 1996 and is intended to “recognize the history, heritage and diversity of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples in Canada” according to Canada.ca. I ask myself, what does this day mean to me? I am a Métis and Ukrainian person living in Canada, and this day brings mixed feelings of pride and concern. 

Where My Heart Settles, Is Where My Home Is

By Heng Wu, Curator of Asian Art, AGGV.

A horse-drawn carriage passing the Legislative Assembly building, instantly captured in freehand-style brushwork, resonating with a festival night in China about 900 years ago recorded in a poem by the Chinese poet Xin Qiji (1140-1207). A young girl in traditional Chinese dress dancing under a maple tree, paired with a line transcribed in the seal-script calligraphy, which reads, “Where my heart settles, is where my home is.” The colorful float homes gilding Victoria’s Fisherman’s Wharf rendered in traditional Chinese ink wash with a tone of Western oil painting. 

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