Heather Woolley, an environmental designer and artist, finds inspiration in the West Coast’s landscapes. Her work fosters a dialogue between humanity and nature, emphasizing sustainability and community engagement.

Central to Heather’s practice is her passion project on rammed earth, where she explores the intersection of material technique, construction art, and sustainability. Through this endeavor, Heather aims to create enduring structures that harmonize with the environment while advocating for responsible building practices. Her goal is to inspire stewardship and sustainability in her viewers, promoting a deeper connection with the natural world.

Since 2011, Choi has been creating traditional Korean folk paintings, drawing inspiration from centuries-old techniques while also infusing them with her own creative expression. She primarily works with Oriental watercolour, Mica Powder, and Hanji—a traditional Korean paper handmade from mulberry trees. She occasionally incorporates other traditional materials, such as Bunchae—a traditional Korean powdered pigment made by mixing finely ground natural or mineral pigments with animal glue— and Bongchae— a premium pigment made by mixing powdered pigments with animal glue and hardening the mixture into solid stick form.

The works featured in this exhibition reflect both homage and innovation. While rooted in the forms and motifs of traditional Korean folk painting, Choi’s works are not mere reproductions. Instead, she reinterprets and transforms these traditions, creating original pieces that embody both reverence and personal vision. Her goal is to highlight the enduring beauty and emotional depth of Korean folk art while bringing a fresh perspective that resonates with contemporary audiences.

Choi is particularly drawn to natural themes—peonies, birds, and other elements of the natural world—which are rich symbols in Korean culture.

Each piece is created through a meticulous process that may take up to six months, involving multiple stages: sketching, outlining, and layering of colours. Through this careful craftsmanship, Choi seeks to preserve the traditional while also exploring her own evolving artistic language.

Choi began her artistic journey in community art classes, initially painting as a hobby. Over time, her dedication and talent led her to participate in various competitions and exhibitions.

The You Are Here exhibit presents the original artwork selected for the 2026 You Are Here Fundraising Calendar. Artists submit artworks of places that are recognizably in North Vancouver or West Vancouver. The 2026 You Are Here Calendar features Mount Seymour, Lonsdale Quay, Whytecliff Park, Seaview Trail, Horseshoe Bay, Grand Boulevard, Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve Gazebo, Lighthouse Park, Spirt Trail, Deep Cove and The Shipyards. This calendar is a fundraiser for the North Shore Culture Compass, a free online map featuring arts, heritage, and stories of the North Shore.

Revealing over a decade of research and visits with collectors from British Columbia and internationally, The Collectors presents Christos Dikeakos’ photo-portraits of collectors with their collections from across the spectrum. Artists, patrons, curators, writers and art lovers alike, these stunning portraits reveal the inside world of collectors and their collections, providing a close view of the relations to the objects that have held their fascination. Working in collaboration with the support of photographer Barrie Jones, these precise and carefully ordered images reveal intimacy, desire and wonder–and bring the collectors, whose efforts support artists, museums, gallerists and arts ecologies and ultimately audiences–from behind-the-scenes into the fore.

Edge Effects features a combination of new commissioned works and projects never before seen by audiences in Canada, such as Liz Magor’s still poignant Blue Students/Alumnos en azul (1997). Originally commissioned by INSITE97, the public project centred on photographic portraits of students from the School of Creative and Performing Arts in San Diego, California, and the Preparatoria Federal Lázaro Cárdenas in Tijuana, Mexico, that were placed throughout both cities. The film negatives were pressed with paper covered in iron salts, which converted into positive blue images as they were exposed to sunlight. By the end of the installation period, only a few portraits had not been completely obscured, with the artist stating that the legibility of the images represented the power of circumstance and chance that governs people’s lives.

Photo credit: Jin-me Yoon, video still from As the Crane Flies Bunker (Sonic Transformations), 2025. 4K and thermal 3-channel video installation with sound, sandbags, netting, and wood. 15:05 minutes, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist.

Across successive bodies of collage works, Anna Binta Diallo has portrayed complex interconnections between human activity and the natural world. These series began with Wanderings, which analysed folk stories and the tales that structure a society’s perception of the world. Gathering visual material from scientific, literary, and historical sources, Diallo applied a diasporic and cross-cultural approach as she constructed various folkloric motifs and archetypes. Continuing from Wanderings, her Voyageur/Almanac works expanded into ecology, speculating on how different mythologies and folklores across cultures might inform our coexistence with various forms of life, and broaden environmental awareness.

Predictions, the newest iteration of this project, extends Diallo’s work into the study of forecasts – scientific and otherwise. With visual references to geology, earth science, mapping, weather events, and topography, the artist has researched data pertaining to astronomical cycles, calendars, tide tables, and farmer’s almanacs of the past and present. Her latest works ask: What was projected into the future by past peoples? What has come true? What hasn’t? What could?

Diallo envisions her own imaginative set of predictions, proposing infinite loops of imagery that can be re-interpreted multiple times, in different cycles. She integrates nonlinear and even nonverbal storytelling, suggesting both new and ancient notions of narrative formed by images in relation. Through layering flora, fauna, human connection to land, and the cosmos, Diallo imagines speculative paths that our ecological and cultural landscapes might follow, and the unexpected constellations of meaning that can guide us through uncertain times.

Phantom Scripts revisits three works by Geoffrey Farmer from the Audain Art Museum’s Permanent Collection — Vampire Archive, November 22, 1974 (2010 – 2025), The Politics of Appearing (2012 – 2025), The Good Sweeper (2017 – 2025)— reframing them through newly composed scripts, annotations, and didactic texts authored by the artist. The texts function as interjections — speculative, contextual, poetic — that reexamine and complicate the earlier works. In doing so, Farmer explores how art can be returned to, re-read, and re-situated under shifting historical and ethical awarenesses.

This exhibition is a return — not only to Farmer’s past works, and to the evolving conditions in which they are understood. Phantom Scripts highlights the artist’s curiosity to revisit the assumptions, forms, and the silences embedded in his earlier productions, treating the past not as fixed, but as an unsettled field of interpretation and implication. Early aesthetic elements remain — vivid, disorienting, alive — but are now considered by the artist within a broader awareness of colonial entanglements and queer disidentification, foregrounding the role of the museum not as neutral host, but as a site of complicity, memory, and potential transformation.

Kintsugi, the Japanese art of “golden joinery,” is a 500-year-old tradition of repairing broken ceramics with natural Urushi lacquer and powdered gold. Rather than disguising damage, it highlights it—honoring imperfection and the passage of time.

Vancouver-based artist Naoko Fukumaru draws on this ancient practice as both a craft and a meditative process. Through her work, she offers a powerful metaphor for personal healing: like broken pottery, our cracks can become part of our story—transformed, illuminated, and made beautiful.

Respecting traditional materials and methods, Fukumaru also pushes the boundaries of kintsugi through instinctive, innovative techniques. Her approach redefines what restoration can mean—bridging history and emotion in work that is both raw and radiant.

This exhibition invites viewers to reflect on what it means to be beautifully broken—and to find strength and beauty in the imperfect.

The Spaces of the Everyday exhibition came about after a thoughtful conversation with Erin McSavaney in which the role of architecture in painting first drew the curator’s attention to his practice. His depictions of houses and urban architecture offer a visually striking and intellectually provocative intersection of two historically divergent painting modes. McSavaney’s works are rendered with photographic precision—indeed, he uses a camera as a kind of sketchbook—evoking the immersive quality of high realism; meanwhile, at times, hard-edge abstraction takes over the subject matter as scenes are disrupted—sometimes subtly, sometimes boldly. Each of these traditions embodies a distinct discourse of image-making.

Some extraordinary places in nature evoke an immediate, almost spiritual connection. The natural honeycomb sandstone formations known as Tafoni, found along the shorelines of many Gulf Islands in British Columbia, are among these places.

Edges is an exhibition featuring the work of five women artists — a painter, a photographer, a potter, a sculptor, and a poet/dancer — from across Canada’s east and west coasts and regions in between. Though coming from different disciplines and backgrounds, each artist has, by chance, encountered the Tafoni formations and found deep inspiration for their creative practices in these erosion-sculpted coastal forms.

A love story, a historical epic and a celebration of Métis song and dance, You Used To Call Me Marie… paints the story of Marie Callihoo through generations and time. We follow Iskwewo, Napew and Mistatim (‘horse’ in Michif) in eight intertwined stories of love and resilience as the Métis nation emerges across the plains. As we experience the love stories of Alberta’s Metis women through the fur trade, governance in the 1930s and into the present day, we witness generations of Callihoo women unfold. You Used To Call Me Marie… is an intimate story that is robust in scope, featuring era-spanning dance and live music that ranges from French fiddle to contemporary country.

This exhibition explores one of the most intense and productive chapters in the professional life of American photographer Lee Miller. Between 1932 and 1945 Miller was simultaneously a renowned portrait photographer running her own studio in New York (1932—1934), a photographer for perfume and cosmetic brands in advertising (1932—1945), and a fashion photographer and war correspondent for the British edition of Vogue (1939—1945). This short time span encompasses a rich history in which the photographer moved between and linked her various practices. Miller’s diverse professional activities, and the ease with which she stepped from one context to another, reveal a photographer whose work was defined primarily by its exchange and commercial value. Lee Miller: A Photographer at Work reveals the inner dynamics of managing a photography career amid the myriad challenges facing professional women at the time. The exhibition offers a rich and complex portrait of this important figure, previously known best for her collaboration with American artist Man Ray and her close ties to the Surrealist movement of the 1920s.

An extended presentation of the Audain Art Museum’s Permanent Collection, From Sea to Sky celebrates the collection’s evolution from its inception in 2016 to the present. Built on the generous donation of over 200 works by Founders Michael Audain and Yoshiko Karasawa, the AAM’s Acquisition Committee has since guided the holding’s expansion through purchase, commission, and donation, to almost 300 outstanding pieces representing the art of British Columbia. Carving, painting, and photography serve as the pillars of the collection, featuring notable works by artists active from the mid-nineteenth to early twenty-first century. Such a display offers a unique visual evocation of the cultural differences that continue to shape BC’s socio-political identity.

From Sea to Sky showcases familiar masterpieces alongside newly acquired and previously archived works of art. These pieces by artists from the province, and those inspired by local environs, are all housed in Patricia and John Patkau’s stunning example of contemporary West Coast architecture. Among the active carvers and photographers of note are Robert Davidson, Dempsey Bob, Jeff Wall, Jin-Me Yoon and Stan Douglas, while paintings by Emily Carr, AY Jackson and BC Binning add a historical dimension to this sweeping display. Works acquired from Karin Bubaš, Rebecca Belmore, and Russna Kaur are indicative of a mid-point in their respective careers and each have also been featured in solo exhibitions at the Museum.

The first solo-exhibition by Marika Swan, A Circle Strong Enough to Carry Both Sides explores her deeply woven understandings of the nature of duality held in all things. In elaborate, large-scale imagery, Swan depicts truths about the human experience through playful imaginings of spiritual realities. Using an emotional visual language entirely her own, Swan’s woodblock printmaking is informed by the rich philosophical and carving traditions of her Nuu-chah-nulth lineage. Introduced to printmaking as a tool for political organizing, her work speaks to the challenges and world we must face now. As the only public art museum dedicated to collecting works on paper, the Burnaby Art Gallery is honoured to host this exhibition, which features new works alongside Swan’s extensive portfolio.

Oasis of Abstraction brings together the work of Nova Scotia–based painter Samantha Battaglia and Ontario artist Lawrence Morton. Battaglia’s fractured geometric abstractions evoke shifting architectural and landscape forms, while Morton’s luminous colour fields unfold as meditative horizons. Together, their works create an oasis within abstraction—a space of balance and stillness where form and atmosphere converge, inviting the viewer to pause, reflect, and breathe.

RSVP Opening Reception November 22nd, 3-6pm
Exhibition runs November 21st – December December 7th

Celebrate the holiday season at Festive Village with presenting partner Concord Pacific. Experience the special atmosphere of festive lights and traditional decorations to get you into the holiday spirit.

Gate admission is free. View the full schedule of events.

Please note that during times of high attendance, entry onto the site may be limited to ensure the safety of our visitors and staff. Updates will be posted on this webpage and on our social media.

Event Highlights:

• Festive lights and decorations: Wander through the museum’s 10-acre open air site, beautifully illuminated with holiday lights and adorned with classic decorations.
• Sports & Games Theme: Explore exhibits and activities centered around the theme of sports and games, perfect for all ages.
• Seasonal Entertainment: Delight in performances from carol singers, roving entertainers, meet Father Christmas, and participate in fun activities like the scavenger hunt.
• Food & Snacks: Enjoy a meal or snack at Mai’s Cafe or a sweet treat from Cravings Kettle Corn.

Important information:

• Entry Limitations: For the safety of our staff and visitors, we may limit entry when the site becomes too full. We recommend arriving early or visiting on weekdays. Updates will be posted on this webpage and on our social media.
• Parking: parking is limited in the area. We highly recommend carpooling or taking transit. Please be respectful to our neighbours and parking staff.

Bring your family and friends to experience the wonder of Festive Village. It’s the perfect way to celebrate the holiday season and create lasting memories.

Hours

November 22-December 15, 2025

• Tuesday-Friday, 1-5:30 pm
• Saturday-Sunday, 1-9 pm
• Closed Mondays

December 16, 2025-January 2, 2026

• Daily, 1-9 pm
• Closed December 24 and 25
• Open January 1

Please note: Last admission into the Museum is 30 minutes before closing.

Additional information

• Frequently asked questions
• Getting here and parking information

https://www.burnabyvillagemuseum.ca/EN/main/what-s-on/heritage-christmas.html