Things to Do in Vancouver this Weekend: October 26, 2017

Happy Halloweekend! It’s time to delight in all things spooky, dark, and otherworldly as we balance on the cusp of winter. Navigate the streets of Vancouver as whatever ghoul your heart desires, letting nothing limit your costume creativity (except perhaps a good grasp of cultural and social awareness, or course). Get festive at Fright Nights, Day of the Dead painting workshops, the Parade of Lost Souls, trick-or-treating for kids, or do something totally different like see Japanese noh or a concert by an immensely talented deaf percussionist/composer.

Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Ongoing

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Friday October 27

Kayoi Komachi/Komachi Visited
Where: The Cultch
What: Japanese noh is one of the oldest theatre traditions performed in the world today. Dating back to 14^th century Japan, this art form known for its highly stylized and structured movement, stirring chant, and hypnotizing rhythm. Witness several top noh practitioners direct from Japan in an unprecedented performance alongside classically trained opera singers and musicians.
Runs until: Saturday October 28, 2017

Grave Tales Walking Tour
Where: Fort Langley
What: Fort Langley’s talented storytellers spin tales of love, mysterious burials, and hair-raising amputations – for adults only.
Runs until: Tuesday October 31, 2017

Johnny & June Carter Cash
Where: The Emerald
What: Join the First Couple of Country (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) in a tribute to Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash for a toe tappin’, good lovin’ time. No cover. Costumes are encouraged (it is Halloween, after all)!

Burnaby’s Haunted Village
Where: Burnaby Village Museum
What: Everyone is encouraged to wear their costumes and dancing shoes to be ready to join the the beautiful Madam Monarch at the Hill street Bash! Entrance includes trick-or-treating, entertainment and carousel rides for all.

VanDusen Glow in the Garden
Where: VanDusen Garden
What: VanDusen Garden invites you to join them this Halloween for an adventure through a whimsical garden. Discover curious twists and magical moments inspired by Lewis Carroll’s classic tale, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Runs until: Tuesday October 31, 2017

Dreamscape Virtual Reality Haunt
Where: Shebeen Whiskey House
What: This pop-up VR theatre takes you through a fully-immersive, 360-degree experience of what it’s like to be in a horror movie.
Runs until: Tuesday October 31, 2017

The Valley Haunt
Where: 1311 Appin Road (North Vancouver)
What: It began years ago, when a family obsessed with the macabre, needed an outlet for their creativity. Expect everything from murderous clowns to bloodthirsty butchers in this haunted house made from shipping containers.
Runs until: Wednesday October 31, 2017 (closed Sundays)

Heart of the City Festival
Where: Vancouver’s Downtown East Side
What: Twelve days of music, stories, songs, poetry, cultural celebrations, films, theatre, dance, processions, spoken word, workshops, discussions, gallery exhibitions, mixed media, art talks, history talks and history walks.
Runs until: Sunday November 5, 2017

Emily Carr University Alumni Art Market
Where: Emily Carr University
What: Visit the Great Northern Way campus, and reward your senses with the multidisciplinary works of 11 powerhouse alumni artist and designers. The Alumni Art Market is the perfect place to pick up fun, unique, quality gifts for the people you love.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Where: The Rio Theatre
What: Bring your props, dress as your favorite Rocky Horror character, extra, or character who should-have-been, and time warp your way into Halloween weekend. 

Crystal Fusion at St. Paul’s Labyrinth
Where: St. Paul’s Labyrinth, 7:00pm
What: Immerse yourself in the sacred sounds of Tibetan gongs and crystal bowls played by Cheryl Redfern and walk the path in an atmosphere of peaceful tranquility.

Maria Schneider
Where: Capilano University
What: Hers has been heralded as the “first truly novel approach to big band composition of the new century” [LA Times] for crafting and leading genre-blending compositions for the 17-member collective of many of today’s finest jazz musicians. 

Action Bronson
Where: Commodore Ballroom
What: Over the last few years, the 28-year old Queens native has become one of hip-hop’s most charismatic and colorful new characters, thanks to his sense of humor, a buffet of releases and the knack for updating East Coast aesthetics into modern music.

Genitorturers
Where: The Rickshaw
What: An industrial metal band from Tampa, Florida with influences extending into the 1990’s hardcore punk and electronic music.

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Saturday October 28

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Tibetan Painting Workshop
Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology, 10:30am
What: Tibetan artist Kalsang Dawa will share his perspective on the healing power of Tibetan art and its many detailed representations of the afterlife. Visitors will get a chance to produce a painted work on canvas to take home or share at MOA’s Day of the Dead event on November 2. (All ages welcome.)

Calavera “Skull” Painting Workshop
Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology, 2:00pm
What: Mexican artist Ari De La Mora will share her extensive knowledge of Day of the Dead (Día de Los Muertos), including its cultural, artistic, and spiritual practices. Visitors will get a chance to produce a painted paper-mache skull.

Parade of Lost Souls
Where: Commercial Drive
What: It is the time for celebration and for ceremony, for reflection and renewal. Wear a costume. Bring an instrument. Make a dance. Join a dance. This parade is for you and by you, all the lost souls of the world; at least we are lost together.

Sea to Sky Gondola Halloween Trick-or-Treat
Where: Sea to Sky Gondola
What: At the base of the gondola, a DJ will spin spooky tunes, and there will be spooktacular performances. Costume-clad kids can grab a trick or treat bag to decorate and get their faces painted at the Base Camp Café in the valley. Then ride in the gondola to the summit and venture off into the forest for trick or treating on the trails. Friendly Sea to Sky creatures including Bernice the Bear and Sally the Salamander will hand out treats.

All Souls
Where: Mountain View Cemetery
What: The first fires are lit at sundown, and throughout the evening the cemetery comes alive with music, poetry, and flickering candles. Inside the celebration hall you will find tea to refresh you, and flowers, papers and candles for the creation of personal memorials to place on one of the artist made shrines or family graves.

Spoo-Ook-Tacular Halloween Weekend
Where: Britannia Mine Museum
What: Underground scary stories, a strange science show, witch’s house, creepy critters and more for Halloween-loving kids.
Runs until: Sunday October 29, 2017

Out On Screen Annual Gala
Where: 162 West 1st Ave
What: Kick off your Halloween weekend with a fabulous cocktail party and art auction in support of Out in Schools and the Vancouver Queer Film Festival! The Fall Gala is a great big night of mixing and mingling with friendly people, positive energy, tasty catering, and showstopping entertainment that culminates in a raucous live art auction featuring an exceptional line-up of talented artists.

Halloween Monster Match
Where: The Improv Centre
What: Featuring costumed performers in two head-to-headless competitions where all but one ghoul will perish. The Improv Centre is transformed with haunting décor into an eerie sepulchre worthy of any Demon or night-loving Vampire. Plus you can shake your bones at the danse macabre.

Tegan and Sara
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre
What: Probably the coolest Canadian twins in music today creating fun and thoughtful pop.

Portrait of the Artist
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: This exhibition brings together The Royal Collection’s paintings depicting self-portraits, portraits of artists and artists at work. Encompassing over eighty works, Portrait of the Artist is a rich survey of how artists have seen themselves and the role of the artist within society.
Runs until: February 4, 2018

Man Up Presents: Unholy
Where: Hindenburg
What: A Queer drag show and dance party for Halloween!

Alien Family Weekend
Where: HR Macmillan Space Centre
What: Have you ever wondered what you would look like as an alien? This weekend is your chance to find out! Make-up artists from Blanche Macdonald will transform your whole family into aliens that could reside on three possible planets in our galaxy.

Crosscurrents
Where: Chan Centre
What: Hussain, the world’s foremost tabla master, and Holland, an all-star bandleader, composer, and 2017 NEA Jazz Master bassist, unite to explore the shared influences and intersections between jazz and Indian music.

Gordon Smith: The Black Paintings
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: The exhibition features a body of work described as black paintings that Gordon Smith began producing in 1990. These densely painted, darkly abstracted paintings—punctuated with occasional colour, text and collaged elements—sometimes refer explicitly to this wartime experience. Smith was deployed with the Allied invasion at Pachino Beach, Sicily (code name Husky), in July 1943, when he was twenty-four.
Runs until: February 4, 2018

Snakehips
Where: The Vogue
What: London natives, Snakehips, consists of Oliver Lee and James Carter playing electro R&B hip-hop.

Dame Evelyn Glennie
Where: The Orpheum
What: The world’s foremost solo percussionist, and a passionate advocate of music education. She has been profoundly deaf since the age of twelve, and has made it her mission to to improve communication and social cohesion by encouraging everyone to discover new ways of listening. A leading commissioner of new works for solo percussion, Evelyn has more than 200 pieces to her name from many of the world’s most eminent composers.

Thrill The World Vancouver
Where: Creekside Community Centre
What: An annual international dance event in which participants simultaneously emulate the zombie dance seen in the music video of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. So zombie up and bring your moves.

Roger Waters (show 1 of 2)
Where: Rogers Arena
What: Don’t miss any chance to catch the songs of Pink Floyd performed live. With two dates and what is usually a killer stage show, rock out with a stadium of fans of classic psychedelic rock.

West Broadway Halloween Trick-or-Treat for Kids and Pets
Where: West Broadway and Macdonald
What: Bring a non-perishable pet food donation for the Vancouver SPCA and you can come trick-or-treat with your kid or your pet to dozens of local businesses.

Carol Sawyer: The Natalie Brettschneider Archive
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: Sawyer’s ongoing project that reconstructs the life and work of the genre-defying, fictional singer and artist Natalie Brettschneider. The works on view will connect Brettschneider to a community of mid-twentieth century artists and musicians in British Columbia.
Runs until: February 4, 2018

Kitty Nights Welcome to the Nightmare
Where: The Rio Theatre
What: A theatrical live rock burlesque journey into the mind and the madness of Alice Cooper. Witness the mayhem as this Alice goes down a very different rabbit hole into a sexy nightmare. 

True Nordic: How Scandinavia Influenced Design in Canada
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: This ground-breaking exhibition examines the significant influence of Scandinavian craft and industrial design on the development of Canadian culture. Spanning more than seven decades, True Nordic reveals how Scandinavian design was introduced in Canada and how its aesthetics and material forms were adopted, revised and transformed.
Runs until: Sunday January 28, 2018

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Sunday October 29

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Fort Langley Kids’ Halloween
Where: Fort Langley
What: A safe, and not-too-scary event to showcase family costumes. There will be trick-or-treating, ghost stories around the fire, and a Creepy Critters show with Mike’s Critters.

Monteverdi’s Orfeo
Where: Chan Centre
What: Early Music Vancouver (EMV) presents Monteverdi’s opera, Orfeo. GRAMMY award-winner and Monteverdi specialist, Stephen Stubbs, leads Pacific MusicWorks and tenor Colin Balzer in an “in concert” performance.

Site for Still Life
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: Andrew Dadson’s practice engages with the notion of boundaries in relation to space and time, primarily through investigations with materials, process and abstraction. Comprising new, ambitious large-scale paintings, film and installation, this exhibition presents a major statement by this young artist of propositions core to his practice.
Runs until: Sunday December 31, 2017

Psychic Fair
Where: Salmagundi West
What: Palmistry, tarot, smudging and more. A fitting way to continue on towards Halloween!

Vancouver Comic & Toy Show
Where: 3250 Commercial Drive
What: Kids or adults who are super into comic books and toys – these are your people.

Roger Waters (show 2 of 2)
Where: Rogers Arena
What: Don’t miss any chance to catch the songs of Pink Floyd performed live. With two dates and what is usually a killer stage show, rock out with a stadium of fans of classic psychedelic rock.

Dame Evelyn Glennie
Where: The Orpheum, 2:00pm
What: The world’s foremost solo percussionist, and a passionate advocate of music education. She has been profoundly deaf since the age of twelve, and has made it her mission to to improve communication and social cohesion by encouraging everyone to discover new ways of listening. A leading commissioner of new works for solo percussion, Evelyn has more than 200 pieces to her name from many of the world’s most eminent composers.

Rocky Mountain Halloween Party
Where: Rocky Mountain Flatbread Kitsilano and Main Street
What: They’ll keep the kids busy with Halloween activities while you kick back with pizza and craft beer.

Martha Wainwright
Where: The Imperial
What: Martha began building a buzz with her well-noted EPs, prior to her 2005 critically and commercially successful debut LP, ‘Martha Wainwright’. London’s Sunday Times included the song, “Bloody Mother F*****g A*****e” in their songs of the year and Rolling Stone called it “a blistering prelude to her debut album.”

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Ongoing

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Jim Park: Unknown Terrain
Where: Kimoto Gallery
What: The Northern landscape forms an important part of Jim Park’s practice. Park sees paint as a language; the memory of lived experience merges with the pictorial possibilities on the canvas.
Runs until: Saturday October 28, 2017

Kayoi Komachi/Komachi Visited
Where: The Cultch
What: Japanese noh is one of the oldest theatre traditions performed in the world today. Dating back to 14^th century Japan, this art form known for its highly stylized and structured movement, stirring chant, and hypnotizing rhythm. Witness several top noh practitioners direct from Japan in an unprecedented performance alongside classically trained opera singers and musicians.
Runs until: Saturday October 28, 2017

Spoo-Ook-Tacular Halloween Weekend
Where: Britannia Mine Museum
What: Underground scary stories, a strange science show, witch’s house, creepy critters and more for Halloween-loving kids.
Runs until: Sunday October 29, 2017

Vagabond Players presents Little Shop of Horrors
Where: The Bernie Legge Theatre (New Westminster, BC)
What: Meek and mild flower shop assistant Seymour Krelborn has stumbled across a peculiar new plant species, which he names after his stunning but vulnerable crush Audrey. The plant, Audrey Two, has plans that are far greater than Seymour can imagine as it grows into a bad-tempered, foul-mouthed carnivore who offers fame, fortune, the girl he loves, and an escape from skid row in exchange for feeding its growing appetite for blood.
Runs until: Sunday October 29, 2017

Happy Place
Where: Firehall Arts Centre
What: Happy Place takes us into the experiences of seven women in an in-patient care facility, living together in the most extraordinary circumstances. Though each woman must navigate her own survival in a world that challenges that possibility, they are also the ones who teach one another how to live in a way no therapist ever could.
Runs until: Sunday October 29, 2017

Fright Nights
Where: Playland
What: Misty, dark, dreary, and full of spooks and scares may not sound like everyone’s ideal night out, but to those of us who love Halloween, nothing could be better! Playland turns into an animated haunted carnival, including seven haunted houses and fifteen of its best rides; what better way to scream away all of your fears?
Runs until: Tuesday October 31, 2017

Stanley Park Ghost Train
Where: Stanley Park
What: Each year, the Stanley Park Ghost Train takes riders of all ages on a journey through a mystical Halloween world. This year, the theme came from outer space with only one goal: alien invasion! Be prepared to be abducted to an unearthly world and journey into the restricted zones to witness the landing. 
Runs until: Tuesday October 31, 2017

Lost Souls of Gastown Halloween
Where: Gastown
What: As much a roaming theatre experience as it is a walking tour, this vivid account of Vancouver’s most dark, gothic early history is tied to this fictional tale of a tragic life. Follow the story of George Turle, a man who witnessed first-hand the terror of smallpox and ran from the Great Fire as it licked the skin from his back, and who became entangled in one of Vancouver’s most notorious murders; the brutal killing of John Bray.
Runs until: Tuesday October 31, 2017

Haunted Halloween Trolley Tour
Where: Starts downtown
What: Guests board a frightful trolley bus and travel through the city listening to storytellers spin tales of murder, treachery and intrigue. Chilling stops (seriously, bring your warm jackets) at Mountain View Cemetery and Vancouver’s original city morgue (where more than 15,000 autopsies were performed) bring these stories to life, guaranteeing a delightfully vivid experience.
Runs until: Tuesday October 31, 2017

Halloween at FlyOver Canada
Where: FlyOver Canada
What: Broomelda the Witch will once again work her magic to transform FlyOver Canada into the Haunted Witches Academy. Aspiring witches and wizards are welcomed into a spine-tingling pre-show before taking off on a spellbinding journey across Canada.
Runs until: Tuesday October 31, 2017

Grave Tales Walking Tour
Where: Fort Langley
What: Fort Langley’s talented storytellers spin tales of love, mysterious burials, and hair-raising amputations – for adults only.
Runs until: Tuesday October 31, 2017

Vancouver Mystery Nights
Where: Vancouver
What: Thirteen years ago Jimmy Capello was found dead in his downtown Vancouver apartment — strangled, poisoned, and stabbed. Now the Terminal City Police Department has re-opened the cold case and it’s up to you to solve it. Teams will compete against each other while completing challenges on the streets of downtown Vancouver and Gastown.
Runs until: Tuesday October 31, 2017

Potter’s House of Horrors
Where: 12530 72 Ave (Surrey, BC)
What: Gather your moteliest crew and drop into one of the area’s biggest and best-rated haunted houses, celebrating 15 years of screams! Attractions include two haunted houses (plus a “Li’l Haunters” attraction geared to kids 12 & under), a coffin ride, a haunted paintball shootout, and a photo booth. Partial proceeds go to Critter Care Wildlife Society.
Runs until: Tuesday October 31, 2017

The Valley Haunt
Where: 1311 Appin Road (North Vancouver)
What: It began years ago, when a family obsessed with the macabre, needed an outlet for their creativity. Expect everything from murderous clowns to bloodthirsty butchers in this haunted house made from shipping containers.
Runs until: Tuesday October 31, 2017 (closed Sundays)

Dreamscape Virtual Reality Haunt
Where: Shebeen Whiskey House
What: This pop-up VR theatre takes you through a fully-immersive, 360-degree experience of what it’s like to be in a horror movie.
Runs until: Tuesday October 31, 2017

Improv Wars: The Laugh Jedi
Where: Vancouver Improv Centre
What: Vancouver TheatreSports takes you to a universe that exists outside of normal time and space – where unlikely characters co-exist. Hosted by a mysterious hooded figure, the players and the audience search for an individual of unique abilities – one with the power to cloud people’s minds, to slip into any role, to make intuitive connections at lightning speed – The Laugh Jedi. 
Runs until: Thursday November 2, 2017

Circle Craft Christmas Market Preview Exhibit
Where: Net Loft building on Granville Island
What: Circle Craft Gallery’s Fall exhibit will give Circle Craft Christmas Market lovers a sneak peek. Exhibitors in the Preview exhibition are: East Van Jam, G Ceramic & Co, Ludviks Designs, Lulu Fiedler, Market Canvas Leather, Misheo, Rosewell Woodworking, Susie Benes, and Yifat Jovani.
Runs until: Thursday November 2, 2017

Honour: Confessions of a Mumbai Courtesan
Where: The Cultch
What: A testament to the humanity and lives of sex workers; a mother’s plea for her daughter’s life and her honour; a story of the struggles of an unlikely family. See Mumbai’s red light district — the eunuch, priest, pimp, mother and daughter who call it home — come to life through the versatile and award-winning performance of Dipti Mehta.
Runs until: Saturday November 4, 2017

Thanks For Giving
Where: Arts Club Theatre
What: While Nan bastes the turkey and prepares the stuffing, her husband hides a freshly hunted bear in the garage and her troublesome daughter is raiding her purse again. To top it all off, her grandchildren have chosen this Thanksgiving to disclose some unexpected personal truths to the family. 
Runs until: Saturday November 4, 2017

Heart of the City Festival
Where: Vancouver’s Downtown East Side
What: Twelve days of music, stories, songs, poetry, cultural celebrations, films, theatre, dance, processions, spoken word, workshops, discussions, gallery exhibitions, mixed media, art talks, history talks and history walks.
Runs until: Sunday November 5, 2017

The Lonesome West
Where: Pacific Theatre
What: Brothers Coleman and Valene can’t seem to co-exist without sudden outbreaks of violence over the pettiest concerns. When their doubt-ridden parish priest attempts to bring reconciliation, their confessions quickly turn from earnest offerings into weapons in a hilarious and dark race to the bottom.
Runs until: Saturday November 11, 2017

Diwali in BC
Where: Various locations
What: In it’s first year, Diwali in BC will explore the artistic theme of Shakti – feminine power – through theatre, dance, film, and culturally specific workshops. The programming will feature works primarily created by women, including Academy Award-nominated Canadian director Deepa Mehta, Dora Award-winning playwright Pamela Mala Sinha, Dr. Aparna Sindhoor along with her pioneering South Asian Contemporary Dance Theatre company Navarasa Dance Theater, rising South Asian award-winning actress Dipti Mehta, and classical dance theatre artist Arno Kamolika.
Runs until: Thursday November 16, 2017

King Charles III
Where: Arts Club Theatre
What: His time has finally come. The queen is dead and Charles ascends the throne, at last. But is he ready for the monarchy or anarchy? When a single decision jeopardizes the trust of the prime minister and the people, revolt against the crown isn’t far behind—and Kate and William are always one step away, vying for their shot. This inventive story of a king under pressure is a clever imagining of a future not yet written.
Runs until: Sunday November 19, 2017

Intangible
Where: Bill Reid Gallery
What: Contemporary Coast Salish art is embedded within a traditional cultural framework that includes community, ceremonial life, territory, history and innovation. Six artists challenge our expectations and illustrate Coast Salish art as a thriving art tradition – a dynamic one that demonstrates both continuity with the past and exploration of new ideas and technologies.
Runs until: Sunday December 10, 2017

Bill Reid Creative Journeys
Where: The Bill Reid Gallery
What: Celebrating the many creative journeys of acclaimed master goldsmith and sculptor Bill Reid (1920–1998), this exhibition provides a comprehensive introduction to his life and work.
Runs until: Sunday December 10, 2017

Cirque du Soleil: Kurios
Where: Under the tents, Downtown Vancouver
What: Step into the curio cabinet of an ambitious inventor who defies the laws of time, space and dimension in order to reinvent everything around him. Suddenly, the visible becomes invisible, perspectives are transformed, and the world is literally turned upside down.
Runs until: Sunday December 31, 2017

Site for Still Life
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: Andrew Dadson’s practice engages with the notion of boundaries in relation to space and time, primarily through investigations with materials, process and abstraction. Comprising new, ambitious large-scale paintings, film and installation, this exhibition presents a major statement by this young artist of propositions core to his practice.
Runs until: Sunday December 31, 2017

Entangled: Two Views on Contemporary Canadian Painting
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: An insight into two distinctly different modes of painting that have come to dominate contemporary painting in this country. The origins of both can be effectively traced back to the 1970s, to a moment when the continued existence of painting was hotly debated.
Runs until: January 1, 2018

Math Moves
Where: Science World
What: Visitors will investigate ratios and proportions, using their bodies, gestures, and words to set up, measure, describe and compare ratios and proportions. The exhibition encourages a collaborative approach to problem-solving, with open-ended activities that provide opportunities for visitors to talk about solutions to the challenges presented in the exhibition.
Runs until: Monday January 1, 2018

Amazonia: The Rights of Nature
Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology
What: MOA will showcase its Amazonian collections in a significant exploration of socially and environmentally-conscious notions intrinsic to indigenous South American cultures, which have recently become innovations in International Law. These are foundational to the notions of Rights of Nature, and they have been consolidating in the nine countries that share responsibilities over the Amazonian basin.
Runs until: January 28, 2018

True Nordic: How Scandinavia Influenced Design in Canada
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: This ground-breaking exhibition examines the significant influence of Scandinavian craft and industrial design on the development of Canadian culture. Spanning more than seven decades, True Nordic reveals how Scandinavian design was introduced in Canada and how its aesthetics and material forms were adopted, revised and transformed.
Runs until: Sunday January 28, 2018

Tin and Gold: A 10 Year Anniversary Show
Where: The Fall
What: Celebrate 10 years of alternative music, tattoo artistry, and multimedia events. The art show includes artists Megan Majewski, Jenn Brisson, Alison Woodward and more.
Runs until: February 1, 2018

Portrait of the Artist
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: This exhibition brings together The Royal Collection’s paintings depicting self-portraits, portraits of artists and artists at work. Encompassing over eighty works, Portrait of the Artist is a rich survey of how artists have seen themselves and the role of the artist within society.
Runs until: February 4, 2018

Gordon Smith: The Black Paintings
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: The exhibition features a body of work described as black paintings that Gordon Smith began producing in 1990. These densely painted, darkly abstracted paintings—punctuated with occasional colour, text and collaged elements—sometimes refer explicitly to this wartime experience. Smith was deployed with the Allied invasion at Pachino Beach, Sicily (code name Husky), in July 1943, when he was twenty-four.
Runs until: February 4, 2018

Carol Sawyer: The Natalie Brettschneider Archive
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: Sawyer’s ongoing project that reconstructs the life and work of the genre-defying, fictional singer and artist Natalie Brettschneider. The works on view will connect Brettschneider to a community of mid-twentieth century artists and musicians in British Columbia.
Runs until: February 4, 2018

City on the Edge: A Century of Vancouver Activism
Where: Museum of Vancouver
What: A photo-based exhibition exploring how protest demonstrations have shaped Vancouver’s identity from the Vancouver Sun and The Province newspapers’ photo collection. These photographs are exceptional historical records of intense and transformative moments in the lives of Vancouverites.
Runs until: February 18, 2017

Tasting History: The Traveling Tales of Tea
Where: Roedde House Museum
What: Tea is one of the most consumed liquids in the world, second only to water. But the beverage that brings much pleasure and calm to our 21st century senses is steeped in a turbulent history of politics and society. The exhibit will also feature stories from Vancouver’s modern-day tea community.
Runs until: March 2018

Emily Carr: Into the Forest
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: Far from feeling that the forests of the West Coast were a difficult subject matter, Carr exulted in the symphonies of greens and browns found in the natural world. With oil on paper as her primary medium, Carr was free to work outdoors in close proximity to the landscape. She went into the forest to paint and saw nature in ways unlike her fellow British Columbians, who perceived it as either untamed wilderness or a plentiful source of lumber.
Runs until: March 4, 2018

The Lost Fleet Exhibit
Where: Vancouver Maritime Museum
What: On December 7, 1941 the world was shocked when Japan bombed Pearl Harbour, launching the United States into the war. This action also resulted in the confiscation of nearly 1,200 Japanese-Canadian owned fishing boats by Canadian officials on the British Columbia coast, which were eventually sold off to canneries and other non-Japanese fishermen. The Lost Fleet looks at the world of the Japanese-Canadian fishermen in BC and how deep-seated racism played a major role in the seizure, and sale, of Japanese-Canadian property and the internment of an entire people.
Runs until: March 25, 2018

Chief Dan George: Actor and Activist
Where: North Vancouver Museum
What: An exhibition exploring the life and legacy of Tsleil-Waututh Chief Dan George (1899- 1981) and his influence as an Indigenous rights advocate and his career as an actor. The exhibition was developed in close collaboration with the George family.
Runs until: April 2018

In a Different Light
Where: Museum of Anthropology
What: More than 110 historical Indigenous artworks and marks the return of many important works to British Columbia. These objects are amazing artistic achievements. Yet they also transcend the idea of ‘art’ or ‘artifact’. Through the voices of contemporary First Nations artists and community members, this exhibition reflects on the roles historical artworks have today. Featuring immersive storytelling and innovative design, it explores what we can learn from these works and how they relate to Indigenous peoples’ relationships to their lands.
Runs until: Spring 2019

What are you up to this weekend? Tell me and the rest of Vancouver in the comments below or tweet me directly at @lextacular

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