This August, get crafty and learn to upcycle discarded materials at MOA, discover Ainu performance arts, and tour UBC’s outdoor art collection. Check back in often as we update this story with new and upcoming events.
Recasting Ainu Indigeneity in Museums Through Performing Arts
Wednesday, August 3 | 5 – 7 pm | MOA’s Haida House
Free
Kick off the month with a lecture and performance by Ainu Indigenous scholar, artist, and dancer Dr. Kanako Uzawa. Dr. Uzawa will explore Ainu performing arts, through discussion and performance, as an important element of Indigenous knowledge.
Students Underground: UBC Downtown Takeover
Wednesday, August 17 | 6-8 pm | UBC Robson Square HSBC Hall
Free
Join CityHive and UBC student organizations for the first ever Students Underground: UBC Downtown Campus Takeover! Learn how to take action in your city while hanging out with students from across Metro Vancouver at UBC Robson Square (HSBC Hall). Food, drinks, and activities will be provided.
Summer Pop-Up Concert Series
Thursday, August 18 & 25 | 12-1 pm | UBC Robson Square Plaza Lounge
Free
Bring a friend, grab some lunch, and drop by UBC Robson Square Plaza Lounge (in downtown Vancouver) to enjoy an hour of classic tunes brought to you by the UBC School of Music.
Tea Ceremonies at Nitobe Memorial Garden
Saturday, August 27 | Various times | Nitobe Memorial Garden
Cost: $10
Tea ceremonies at the Nitobe Memorial Garden with The Urasenke Foundation of Vancouver are back this year! Don’t forget to bring a pair of socks as seating will be on tatami mats.
Culture Club at MOA: Environmental Art
Sunday, August 28 | 11 am – 1 pm | MOA’s Learning Lab
Free with museum admission
Join local environmental artists Elvira DS Monteforte and Dolores Altin to explore how recycled and discarded materials can be combined and up-cycled into ‘trash art’ treasures and connect us to land and nature. Afterwards, enjoy a self-guided tour of diverse works within MOA’s Multiversity Galleries that are made from recycled materials and speak to our environmental responsibility.
Tours: UBC Outdoor Art Collection
Various dates in August | Various times | Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery | Free
Tour selected artworks on the UBC campus and reflect on questions of home, territory, and relationships to the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people. Two tours are available: the Decolonization tour highlights site-specific artworks by Indigenous artists and raises questions around issues of place, space and identity and the Ecologies and Economies tour showcases artworks that engage with themes related to both social ecologies and the natural world, and people’s relationship with their surroundings on campus.
JULY
Summer Pop-Up Concert Series
Every Thursday in July | 12-1 pm | UBC Robson Square Plaza Lounge
Free
Bring a friend, grab some lunch, and drop by UBC Robson Square Plaza Lounge (in downtown Vancouver) to enjoy an hour of classic tunes brought to you by the UBC School of Music.
Arooj Aftab
Wednesday, July 13 | 8 pm | Chan Shun Concert Hall
Tickets: $30–$60
Part of the Indian Summer Festival and co-produced with the Chan Centre, catch Arooj Aftab, one of the rising stars of the music world for the first time ever in Vancouver. Aftab’s liminal sound floats between classical minimalism and new age, Sufi devotional poetry and electronic trance, jazz structures, and states of pure being.
Xicanx: Not-Your-Average Tours
Thursday, July 21 | 7 pm | Museum of Anthropology
Free with museum admission
Join Miret Rodriguez of the Vancouver Latin American Cultural Centre for a special tour of the exhibition, Xicanx: Dreamers + Changemakers/soñadores + creadores del cambio. This tour will focus on sharing perspectives about Xicanx history, social and political issues and identity.
JUNE
Image credit: Museum of Anthropology at UBC
Tla Yahda – Making It Right: Repatriation Ethics, A Haida View
Saturday, June 4 | 1-2 pm | Online or in-person at MOA’s Haida House
Free or museum admission
Sdahl Ḵ’awaas, Lucy Bell of the Haida Nation, will reflect on the issues surrounding repatriation and museum practices, as well as the decisions and actions that led to successful repatriations and the ethical issues museums must face along the path to reconciliation.
Tours: UBC Outdoor Art Collection
June 11 & 17 | Various times | Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery
Free
Tour selected artworks on the UBC campus and reflect on questions of home, territory, and relationships to the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people. Two tours are available: the Decolonization tour highlights site-specific artworks by Indigenous artists and raises questions around issues of place, space and identity and the Ecologies and Economies tour showcases artworks that engage with themes related to both social ecologies and the natural world, and people’s relationship with their surroundings on campus.
Image credit: Museum of Anthropology at UBC
Xicanx: Not-Your-Average Tours
Thursday, June 16 | 7 pm | Museum of Anthropology
Free with museum admission
Deepen your exhibition experience of Xicanx: Dreamers + Changemakers/soñadores + creadores del cambio in these special tours that focus on sharing perspectives about Xicanx history, social and political issues and identity. Diamond Olivia Olsson Delgado, musician, poet, storyteller and actor and Angelic Goldsky, creative director and founder of the Transgender Expressions Haven, will participate in this tour.
Image credit: Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery
Start Somewhere Else: Works from the Collection
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 16 | 6–8 pm | Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery
From June 17–August 14 | Various times | Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery
Free admission
This exhibition centres around Krista Belle Stewart’s video installation Seraphine, Seraphine (2015) to consider doubling and duplicities in personal and historical narratives. Through an interest in the archive and how stories are told between the individual and institutional, Stewart’s practice takes up the complexities of intention and interpretation made possible by archival material.
Image credit: UBC School of Music
UBC Opera: Rusalka
Thursday, June 23–Sunday, June 26 | Various times | Old Auditorium
Tickets: $20-$45
Rusalka tells the story of The Little Mermaid (as seen in Slavic mythology) who gives her voice to a wicked witch for a chance at love with a mortal Prince. Her desperate longing to experience true love plunges her into an emotional storm, until she must choose whether or not to make the ultimate sacrifice for love. While tragic, Rusalka nonetheless reminds all who experience the opera of the power and joy of love.
MAY
Image by: Russell Gordon, Romi Kim, Hannah Möller, Ido Radon and Arti Struyanskiy, Protean Lattice, 2022.
Protean Lattice: UBC Master of Fine Arts Exhibition 2022
Now–May 29 | Various times | Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery
Free admission
Visit this exhibition of work by the 2022 graduates of the Master of Fine Arts program: Russell Gordon, Romi Kim, Hannah Möller, Ido Radon and Arti Struyanskiy. This program in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory is limited each year to a small group of four to six artists, who over the two years foster different sensibilities developed within an intimate and discursive working environment.
Image by: Rachel Topham Photography Ltd.
Artist Talk: Holly Schmidt and kQwa’st’not (Charlene George)
Thursday, May 5 | 1:30 pm | Outside the Belkin
Free
Join kQwa’st’not (Charlene George), artist and cultural guide with Sierra Club BC and Holly Schmidt, outdoor art artist in residence, in conversation about their work that engages with land, story and planting seeds of change.
Community Connection Series: No Money, No Connections, No Problem! Career Persistence While Making Ends Meet
Thursday, May 5 | 3:30 pm–5:00 pm | Online
Free
As a student facing financial barriers, how can you balance university life, planning your career, and networking? How do lived experiences influence your financial wellbeing in post-secondary and beyond? Hear from a panel of alumni, including Arts alum Hala Nugent (BA’05) about navigating life through a lens of financial wellbeing.
Alumni Office Hours with Grace Kamara
Tuesday, May 10 | 3:30 pm-5:00 pm | Online
Free
Learn about Arts alumna Grace Kamara’s (BA’17) career journey from the United Nations, to the tech industry, and then on to the consulting field, and how she has leveraged her skills in support of her career transitions.
Your Next Step – Virtual Job Fair 2022
Thursday, May 12 | 11:00 am-4:00 pm | Online
Free
Connect with hiring managers and recruiters and launch your career. This one-day virtual career fair is open to all undergraduate/graduate students, new graduates, and alumni from all programs and degrees.
Image by: Muneefist Destiny, Alfred J. Quiroz. Collection of the artist.
Xicanx: Dreamers + Changemakers / Soñadores + creadores del cambio
May 12–January 1, 2023 | Various times | Museum of Anthropology
Museum admission
Mark your calendars for MOA’s new exhibition featuring contemporary works by 33 Xicanx artists who combine traditions with contemporary experiences and realities to create powerful critiques that help build our understanding of issues of race, migration, and identity that impact the Xicanx community.
Related:
Xicanx: Curator Tour with Artists
May 14 | 11–12:30 pm | Museum of Anthropology
Museum admission
Join the co-curators of Xicanx: Dreamers + Changemakers / Soñadores + creadores del cambio, Jill Baird and Greta de León and select exhibition artists, including David Zamora Casas, Linda Vallejo, Delilah Montoya, Judith Baca and Celia Álvarez Muñoz for a tour of the exhibition. The artists will share more about their works, revealing their various artistic approaches towards addressing the personal, social and political issues of our time.
Image by: UBC Opera
UBC Opera: Singer Behind the Song
Wednesday, May 25 | 7 pm | Old Auditorium
Tickets: $20-$35
Soprano Simone Osborne and bass-baritone Gordon Bintner return to Vancouver for a short recital followed by an interview, and a masterclass featuring students from the UBC Opera Ensemble.
