Through the lens of contemporary artists’ engagement with the metaphorical and literal processes of fire and the spaces it creates and displaces, The Structure of Smoke includes works that problematize the poetic, structural and political aspects of fire. These works complicate the inherent contradictions of wildness and domestication, technological progress and social control, colonial conditions, rebirth and death. Holding a smoked mirror to contemporary society, the works in this exhibition offer ways to undo the familiar in how we approach our uncertain future.

Speculative in nature, The Structure of Smoke is associative, contextual and driven by artistic practices that disturb existing power relations and question their own conditions and structures. With a focus on ecologies, interconnectedness and relationality the works and curatorial premise consider relating to land, community, family and wildfire ecologies including the non-human. As we have seen with the migration of smoke across the globe and the birth of a regular fire season, the ways in which we live with fire require new strategies that embrace specific Indigenous and ecological knowledges and the ability to develop relations with fire beyond the spectacle and devastation of its impacts.

The Structure of Smoke is curated by Melanie O’Brian and Tania Willard and made possible with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and our Belkin Curator’s Forum members.

That Green Ideal: Emily Carr and the Idea of Nature is the largest solo exhibition of iconic British Columbia artist Emily Carr (1871–1945) at the Vancouver Art Gallery in over twenty years.

Featuring more than 100 works, it explores in-depth the artist’s obsession with the landscape of the Pacific Northwest, using close analysis of her paintings and writings to investigate how she understood nature and her relationship to it. The exhibition argues that Carr’s landscapes exist at the intersection between an experience of nature and an idea about how to transmit that experience through a painting, with the goal of expressing a divine essence in nature. It teases out the tension between individual and local references and the larger ideas and philosophies about nature in Western cultural traditions.

Guest curated by Salish artist Eliot White-Hill, Kwulasultun, this exhibition brings together the work of 11 Coast and Interior Salish artists working across sculpture, printmaking, textiles, painting, and mixed media. Together, their practices reveal the deep cultural, linguistic, and artistic relationships that flow across the Salish world.

While institutional narratives have often centered on Coastal Salish art, this exhibition broadens the lens, foregrounding the vital interconnectivity between Interior and Coast Salish communities. In doing so, it challenges the historic marginalization of Salish art within broader Northwest Coast art histories.

At the heart of the curatorial vision is the river, both a living presence and a powerful metaphor, linking land, water, identity, and evolving cultural practices.
The exhibition celebrates Salish art as dynamic, sophisticated, and forward-looking, affirming its place as both culturally essential and artistically visionary.

Featuring influential artists who have paved the way, including Susan Point and Angela Paul, alongside emerging voices shaping the future, this exhibition offers a resonant and timely exploration of continuity, connection, and creative resurgence.

Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art presents Blossoming, a solo exhibition from Kwakwaka’wakw artist Jamie Gentry, curated by Aliya Boubard, from February 28 – May 24, 2026. After 12 years of creating moccasins by commission, this exhibition serves as an opportunity for Gentry to implement her handcrafted beadwork based solely on personal inspiration, culminating in a journey of self-discovery and growth, and a gift to create her own joy. The exhibition features a series of handmade moccasins adorned with realistic floral beadwork along with a selection of photographs showcasing the moccasins in the natural environment from which each pair was inspired. A workshop with the artist will be held during the exhibition run, further details to be announced. For admission information and complete event details, visit: billreidgallery.ca

Andrew James McKay’s Provisional Realism is comprised of six pictures — two landscapes and four portraits. The landscapes can be further divided into urban and rural settings (Expansion Project and Sunshine Coast Highway, respectively), while the portraits run the gamut — from self-portraiture (Impersonator), to staged direction (Showroom), to conceptual (Alisa with Textile), to meta (The Woodshop). Though the paintings align easily with realist criteria, their provisional status requires some thinking.

A first thought concerns an instance where landscape and portraiture meet in a single work, as in the mural portrait that appears in the Expansion Project landscape. This mural, which centres the words “THE PRESENT” across its figure’s chest, was a project of the now-defunct Vancouver Mural Festival, a controversial non-profit accused of “art-washing.” [1] As with many VMF projects, murals were commissioned with no guarantee of permanence. Although we could refer to them as provisional (existing temporarily, or in the present), the provisional aspect assumed in Expansion Project (Vancouver’s five-year Broadway Subway Line expansion) is in reality closer to an operative protraction than anything fleeting: a scenario in which governments and market forces collude to neo-liberally manipulate both time and space for profit, in a city young and ruthless enough to be cursed, like Modernism, with forever making itself new.

Kinship, a group exhibition of six Vancouver-based trans and gender-diverse ceramic artists curated by Jai Sallay-Carrington, runs March 19 through April 24, 2026. With Kinship, figurative ceramic practices become a means of grappling with queer and trans embodiment in all its complexity. Showcasing work by Rojina Farrokhnejad, Pedram Penhan, Cat Hart, Danya Gorodetsky, Felix Thomas, and Sallay-Carrington themself, Kinship is timed to coincide with International Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31) and is also a featured exhibition in the 2026 Canadian Clay Symposium (March 21–23). Arriving at a time when trans bodies remain highly politicized, these artists question how gender, sexuality, and desire shape one’s sense of belonging, or otherness, within culture.

Tupananchiskama: Ancient Andean Cosmovision explores the enduring worldviews of ancient Andean civilizations through nearly 100 exquisite pre-Columbian ceramic, textile, bone and wood works, some dating back more than 2,500 years. These works were collected by former UBC Professor Alan R. Sawyer and donated to MOA. The Andes are home to some of the world’s most complex cultural traditions, and its knowledge lives on in landscapes, practices, languages, and material culture.

This exhibition highlights Andean cosmovision—a holistic and spiritual understanding of the universe grounded in reciprocity, balance, and the recognition of nature as a living being. Far more than artistic objects, the belongings on display embody relationships between humans, ancestors, and sacred forces.

Tupananchiskama, is a word in Quechua, an Indigenous language of the Andes. It means “until life brings us together again” and reflects an ancestral view of life and death as part of a continuous cycle. In Andean philosophy, death is not an end but a transformation. Through the belongings in this exhibition, visitors are invited to reflect on continuity, resilience, renewal, and the promise of reunion.

Uncommon Places is a landmark series of photographs by American photographer Stephen Shore (b. 1947, New York, NY). Taken over the course of multiple road trips across North America between 1973 and 1981, this series played a pivotal role in establishing the importance of colour photography as a fine art form.

During his travels, Shore photographed intersections, parking lots, buildings, interiors, landscapes, objects and people, defining a photographic vernacular rooted in everyday Americana. Through Shore’s lens, such seemingly mundane subject matter becomes uncommon—framing, composition, colour, clarity and perspective work together to create a world of compelling images in which we see ordinary matter anew. Shore’s approach to the series is marked by a contemplative, attentive and detached quality, shaped by his use of a tripod-mounted, large-format camera that facilitates precision, sharpness and vivid clarity. Uncommon Places was originally published as a book in 1982.

Following a major gift from the Chan Family of eight hundred and one photographs from the series, the Gallery’s collection is one of the most comprehensive representations of this highly influential body of work held by any museum in the world. Together, these works offer insight into the development of Shore’s photographic approach, as well as the thematic strands, range of subjects and formal concerns that unfold across the series. Alongside iconic images of life on the road, this exhibition foregrounds Shore’s photographs from Canada and highlights his encounters with the people he met along the way who shaped his journeys.

This important art installation by self-taught artist Kim O’Brien is her first exhibition since we presented ENTANGLED in 2024. ENTANGLED was based on her own personal experience as a patient in the BC mental health system here in Vancouver and was primarily depicted through life-size sculptures that were felted, stitched, knitted, and sewn.

NICE has been in the making since May 2024.

This is what Kim has to say about the exhibition:

“Although not obviously connected, the catalyst for NICE was a psychiatric misdiagnosis. After my hospital discharge, I was told an antidote about my time in involuntary ‘care.’ Staff told my sister what a ‘nice’ woman I was — ‘your sister is a pleasure to have on the ward.’ That antidote lived in my body as discomfort.

As I learned how to navigate the effects of psychiatric trauma, I continued to bump into my compliance and seemingly agreeable nature while struggling with feelings of personal betrayal. In an effort to understand my impulse of niceness, I began exploring how nice sits in my body. Could I untangle myself from a trait that, until recently, I had perceived as positive? Did I want to?

Despite my reluctance, my inability to forgive myself indicated that I had to, and so began my exploration of nice. This became a deep dive into childhood trauma done in therapy, and an exploration of nice as both a personal and societal pressure within my art practice. What emerged is a series of observations and confessions so deeply personal that I distanced myself by using THE WOMAN to examine my interior. NICE is ultimately a personal journey of understanding and forgiveness.”

The Dance Centre’s series of talks Dance Dialogues features a presentation by Indigenous artist Tasha Faye Evans.

Tasha’s work initiates a choreographic study of Coast Salish art and design with master carvers and cultural mentors. Through dialogue and demonstration, Tasha will introduce her dance making methodology of landing and presencing based on the fundamental shapes and cultural teachings of the Salish eye. In this intimate gathering, witness ancestral shapes and storytelling translated in the body and carved into space, connecting us to these lands, culture, and all our relations.

She will be joined by special guests including Sḵwx̱wú7mesh master carver Xwalacktun OBC.

FCA PopUp Market: Music • Vendors • Drinks & Snacks

In Partnership with the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival

Join us on April 12 from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM for the FCA PopUp Market at the Federation of Canadian Artists’ Flex Space Studio in Vancouver.

This afternoon pop-up brings together local artists, makers to sell their art and goods for a vibrant community gathering celebrating creativity and connection. There will be music, a bar with small snacks for attendees to enjoy. Browse unique goods from independent vendors, enjoy being with community, and sip beverages while exploring one of Vancouver’s most dynamic arts spaces.

Whether you’re looking to discover new artists, pick up something special, or spend a laid-back Sunday immersed in culture and community, the FCA PopUp Market offers something for everyone.

📍 Location
FCA Flex Space Studio
1310 Johnston Street
Vancouver, BC

🗓 Date & Time
Sunday, April 12 — 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Back in February, Wonderwall had its world premiere at The Theatre at Hendry Hall in North Vancouver. This charming, intimate venue was perfect for a first run, and reactions from audiences members went well beyond our expectations. A new play is always a bit of a shot in the dark, as you never truly know what you have until an audience tells you. Fortunately for us, our inbox began to fill up with glowing reviews the same night we held our preview show.

Recently, we decided to hold a second run of Wonderwall at The NEST on Granville Island in April 2026. Our cast will be slightly different, but the show will be staged with all the heart and soul we put into our first run. We hope you will join us.

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Ser Serpas (b. 1995, Boyle Heights, California) lives and works in New York City and received degrees from Columbia University, New York, and HEAD, Genève. Notable institutional solo exhibitions include presentations at the Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland; the Pinault Collection, Bourse de Commerce, Paris; and Swiss Institute, New York. Serpas has also participated in group exhibitions at the Rubell Museum, Miami; Aïshti Foundation, Beirut; MoMA PS1, New York; the 2024 Whitney Biennial, New York; the 2024 El Museo del Barrio Triennial, New York; Musée d’art moderne et contemporain Genève; Bonner Kunstverein, Germany; Haus am Waldsee, Berlin; Istituto Svizzero, Rome; Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Punta della Dogana, Venice; and Kunsthalle Fribourg, Switzerland. Serpas has a solo exhibition upcoming at Kölnischer Kunstverein, Germany.

Rafik Greiss (b. 1997) is an Egyptian artist based in Paris working across photography, installation and time-based media. His practice reflects on transformation, memory and the shifting states of images and objects through a formally and technically diverse approach that moves between digital and analogue processes. Often described as atmospheric, provocative and sensual, his work is driven by what Mitchell Anderson calls a “commitment to sensation rather than theme or medium.” His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Balice Hertling, Paris (2024, 2021), as well as in group exhibitions at the Istanbul Biennial (2025); Simian, Copenhagen (2025); Kunsthalle Zürich (2024); and the Swiss Institute, New York, with Ser Serpas (2023). His work is held in collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Pinault Collection, Paris; Louis Vuitton Collection, Paris; and Lafayette Anticipations, Paris.

Douglas Watt (b. 1990, St. Catharines) is an artist living and working in Vancouver’s Davie Village on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. He holds a BA (Art History) from Carleton University, Ottawa; an MFA from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver; and was a visiting student in Criticism & Curatorial Practice at OCAD University, Toronto. He has presented solo exhibitions at Unit 17, Vancouver (2019), Tara Downs, New York (2021), and Pumice Raft, Toronto (2024). His work has been featured in Artforum and BlackFlash Magazine. Watt co-edits the publication Porthole with Hamish Hardie.