This weekend officially marks a year since terms like ‘social distancing’ and ‘self-isolation’ have become a part of our lexicon. A lot can happen in a year, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The weather is getting better, the days are getting longer and up to 10 people can now gather outdoors. Let’s celebrate the small things and get out to enjoy what Vancouver has to offer. Make sure to book your tickets in advance to all of the activities to avoid disappointment.
Imagine Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience
Where: Vancouver Convention Centre West
What: In this exhibition, visitors of all ages discover a new way of reconnecting with the work of this great master. The very concept of Imagine Van Gogh is grandiose: visitors wander amongst giant projections of the artist’s paintings, swept away by every brushstroke, detail, painting medium and colour. Immersed in an extraordinary experience where all senses become fully awakened, viewers will be truly moved by such spectacular beauty. Visitors discover more than 200 of Van Gogh’s paintings, including his most famous works, painted between 1888 and 1890 in Provence, Arles and Auvers-sur-Oise.
Runs until August 29, 2021
Photo credit: Tourism Vancouver/Patio
Where: Various locations in Downtown
What: Tourism Vancouver has launched a new free outdoor public activation for Vancouver residents to enjoy in a safe and distanced way throughout the month of March. In partnership with the Downtown BIA, Robson BIA and the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre Hotel, this new unique passive outdoor experience, #LoveVancouver Bubbles, will include light and dance performances projected and at a distance at various sites around the downtown core.
Runs Thursday–Saturday 5 pm-9 pm until the end of March 2021
Photo credit: H Tasting Lounge
Where: H Tasting Lounge
What: H Tasting Lounge’s outdoor patio has bloomed into a captivating botanical garden. Dine inside sparkling translucent domes styled with floral accents and climbing vines. Brimming with Instagrammable moments, including a flower wall, The Secret Garden at H Tasting Lounge is sure to ignite your spirit this spring. Indulge in the signature afternoon tea or pick H’s stapes from the menu. You’ll find oysters, truffle fries, Nova Scotia lobster roll, and seafood linguine, alongside many other main dishes. For dessert don’t miss the cotton candy and cream puffs!
Photo credit: Vancouver Mysteries
Outdoor Games with Vancouver Mysteries
Where: Various Locations, Downtown Vancouver
What: Vancouver Mysteries is a fully outdoor, Covid secure game that takes you throughout downtown Vancouver solving clues in teams. Teams must be within the same household and you can pick the adventure that sounds the most fun to you! Choose one of four outdoor game routes and have fun solving a mystery.
Photo credit: Burnaby Village Museum
Free Admission at Burnaby Village Museum
Where: Burnaby Village Museum
What: Families can stop by the Burnaby Lake General Store and learn about popular store purchases in the 1920s or visit the newly renovated Way Sang Yuen Wat Kee & Co. herbalist shop to discover the role Chinese medicine has played in shaping communities like Burnaby. Returning to the museum as this year’s feature exhibit is Across the Pacific, featuring stories, photographs and artifacts illustrating the history and legacy of Chinese Canadians in Burnaby. The exhibit is presented in three written languages – English as well as traditional and simplified Chinese – and includes audio components featuring several Cantonese dialects.
Runs until March 26, 2021
Photo credit: Jericho Beach Kayak Centre
Spring Break Kayaking Tours for the whole Family
Where: Jericho Beach Kayak Centre
What: Join other families and spend some time on the water with your kids. These tours are a great way to either expose your kids to kayaking for the first time or to get a chance to paddle along-side your kid and enjoy some quality time on the water together. Whether you want to have your toddler in the middle hatch of a double kayak, or whether you want to paddle along-side your teenager we’d love to have you join us!
Runs until March 28, 2021
Photo Credit: Andi McLeish
Where: The Hive Bouldering Gym
What: Bouldering is one of the best and easiest ways to start climbing: no ropes, no harnesses, no partner, no problem! All the fun of climbing, easy to access, and one of Vancouver’s most supportive communities and most comprehensive range of training and development programs. All new climbers are encouraged to take Introduction to Bouldering lesson: a two-hour class that covers all the basics of climbing, how to fall in order to reduce risk of injury as much as possible, essential tips and tricks to get you started and primed for success, and includes two weeks of membership to practice what you’ve learned.
Photo credit: Vancouver Art Gallery
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: Drawn from the Vancouver Art Gallery’s rich photographic holdings, Pictures and Promises focuses on lens-based works that employ the structures, conventions and formal qualities used in mass media, fashion and advertising. The works then deploy these strategies to play on collective understandings of the world around us and to investigate the iconography of consumerism. Given advertising’s shift from denotative to connotative meaning, both artistic and commercial production have created chains of signification to imply meaning that surpasses the work or object itself.
Runs until September 6, 2021
Photo credit: North Van Arts
Where: CityScape Community ArtSpace
What: What is motherhood? What does it mean to be a mother? These questions are explored in Mother Tongue, the upcoming exhibition at North Van Arts. Artists Sara Khan, Laura Rosengren, and Katherine Duclos address the complex range of emotions and practices inherent in the life-changing transformation motherhood brings. This exhibition draws together multiple mothers’ narratives by creating a visual language of their experiences, challenging the notions of motherhood. We invite viewers to experience the joyful, chaotic, loud, incredible, and surreal elements of being a Mother.
Runs until April 10, 2021
Photo credit: Polygon Gallery
Where: Polygon Gallery
What: Response: Our Land Narrative is the culmination of the Response program, a new multi-year collaboration between The Polygon Gallery and First Nations Student Services and the Indigenous Digital Filmmaking Program at Capilano University. Participants engaged in a series of workshops led by Indigenous artists and Knowledge Keepers during Fall 2020. Inspired by the image of spreading branches and root systems, participants were invited to think carefully about and interpret where we are located, and how these places fundamentally shape our ways of knowing and who we are.
Runs until March 21, 2021
Photo credit: Le Centre Culturel Francophone de Vancouver
Exhibition “Aquatika” Sylvie Peltier
Where: Le Centre Culturel Francophone de Vancouver
What: Sylvie Peltier’s exhibition “Aquatika” explores the richness and complexity of nature, which is so much more than a mountain, a sunset, a forest, or a lake. Recently she has been experimenting with the interplay of lily pads, reeds, and water and the mysterious abstract motifs they create.
Runs until April 22, 2021
Photo credit: Museum of Vancouver
Fish Skin Leather Workshop with Janey Chang – Online
Presented by the Museum of Vancouver, learn the process of transforming raw fish skins into a beautiful, translucent but durable textile that can be used to make clothing, pouches, wallets, footwear, art and anything you would use leather for. In this two part class (March 20 & 27), we will explore oil tanning which preserves the natural colour of fish skins. You will know everything you need to know to have your own Home Tannery!
March 20th and 27th, 2021 at 10:00am – 12:00pm
Photo credit: Don Enright
Talking Trees with Talaysay Tours – Online
Take a virtual cultural journey to the land and sea with your Talaysay Indigenous Ambassador-Guide. Listen to rich stories and history about the land, while learning how trees and plants are used by Indigenous people for food and medicine. Learn to identify plant and sea life for your next adventure into the forest or ocean. By the end of the tour, you will know what is edible, medicinal and adaptable for technology.
Sunday March 21, 2021 at 10:00 am
Photo credit: Dance House/Robert Etcheverry
DanceHouse: Jean-Pierre Perreault’s Joe – Online
DanceHouse, in partnership with Digidance, announces the exclusive online broadcast of Montreal choreographer Jean-Pierre Perreault’s (1947-2002) seminal work Joe. Having premiered in 1984 to critical acclaim, the visually arresting work is considered one of the most iconic creations in the Canadian dance canon and showcases the brilliance and scope of Perreault’s vision, as a company of 32 power through a driving commentary on the human condition. Despite Joe’s revered status in Canadian dance, the broadcast will mark many audiences’ first opportunity to experience the massive spectacle, in particular for Vancouverites, as the work never toured to the west coast. Following the online broadcast, a 25-minute documentary film will shed light on the work’s creation, significance, and legacy.
Streaming until March 23, 2021
Photo credit: Zee Zee Theatre Company
Zee Zee Theatre presents Virtual Humanity – Online
The deeply personal, immensely popular, one-on-one experience adapts the company’s annual Human Library project into the digital space, where participants can ‘check out’ a human for a candid conversation about their life experiences, culture and beliefs – including such titles as Porn Actor, Two-Spirit Foster Child, The Taxidermist’s Son, and more. The online edition will feature an array of new and returning ‘Virtual Humans’ – with a particular emphasis on representation from BIPOC individuals – available for 20-minute loans over the course of four weekends. The project is designed to shatter preconceived notions about otherhood, to challenge our biases and misunderstandings and to put a human face to difference as a means to foster empathy.
Streaming on Saturdays and Sundays until March 28, 2021
Photo credit: CelticFest Vancouver
CelticFest Vancouver – Virtual Game Show
A virtual game show, where six familiar team captains will lead their teams in a head-to-head battle for the best knowledge and sharpest wit! You can select the team captain of choice or can choose a team captain at random when you log in, either way it’s guaranteed banter!
Friday March 19, 2021 at 7:30 pm
Photo credit: CelticFest Vancouver
CelticFest Vancouver – CRAIC AGUS CEOL – Online
Tune in to enjoy some comedy, music and all-round entertainment from BC and beyond.
The event will feature performances from: local Vancouver artist Pat Chessell; winner of the Comhaltas All Ireland storytelling competition and the Mick McCarthy storytelling competition, Frances Kennedy from County Kerry; singer Sarah Ann Chisholm and fiddler Michael Burnyeat; The North Shore Celtic Ensemble and CelticFest’s very own comedy sketch extraordinaire, Harry Cussen.
Saturday March 20, 2021 at 7:00 pm
