AT THE MUSEUMS
AN EXHIBITION OF MORE
than three hundred items created in the decades following the Second World War “reveals the multiple ways modernism was interpreted in British Columbia,” says the Vancouver Art Gallery. Modern in the Making: Post-War Craft and Design in British Columbia includes furniture, fashion, jewellery, textiles, and ceramics that represent the craftsmanship and functionalism of modernism. Among other items, objects by Nuu-chahnulth weaver Nellie Jacobson, Haida artist Bill Reid, and others show how Indigenous design contributed to the province’s modernization, while creations from the 1960s and 1970s reflect the influence of counterculture movements. The exhibition continues in Vancouver until January 3, 2021.
PLANS FOR THE NEW
Chinese Canadian Museum are only taking shape, but the organization behind the project has already helped to launch two temporary exhibits related to Chinese- Canadian history —— one in Vancouver and one in Victoria. Both involve collaborations with existing museums. In July, the B.C. government announced $10 million in support for the wider project to be coordinated by the Chinese Canadian Museum Society of BC. That same month, the pop-up exhibit Peering into the Past: Celebrating Canada’s Oldest Chinatown —— which includes artifacts such as historical photographs, a fire-insurance map, and an in- depth look at a Chinese
Freemasons lantern —— opened in Victoria’s Fan Tan Alley, a National Historic Site. It’s produced by the Victoria Chinatown Museum Society, the Chinese Canadian Museum’s first of several expected regional hubs, in collaboration with the Royal BC Museum and continues into 2021. Meanwhile, in Vancouver’s Chinatown, which is expected to be the site of the new museum’s main provincial hub, the historic Hon Hsing building is hosting a satellite exhibition that also opened in the summer. It’s part of the larger exhibition A Seat at the Table: Chinese Immigration and British Columbia produced by the Museum of Vancouver and the University of British Columbia. The Vancouver Chinatown exhibit offers personal stories of Chinese Canadians as part of the wider exhibition that explores immigration through the lens of food and restaurant culture. The main component of A Seat at the Table opens in November at the Museum of Vancouver.
THE CHÂTEAU RAMEZAY
museum In Montreal is hosting an exhibit of Montreal landscapes from the Power Corporation of Canada artworks collection. Begun in 1964 by Paul Guy Desmarais, it’s considered one of the country’s finest corporate art collections and traces the development of Canadian art from 1800 to 1970. Works on display at Château Ramezay until January 2021 portray sites such as Montreal’s Bonsecours Market and Notre Dame Basilica as well as historic scenes of steamboats and grain silos.