Photo: Kate Milford
This weekend officially marks the beginning of the summer! The weather is gorgeous and the smaller live events are slowly returning to the city. I hope you are getting your weekend plans in order. Love Bubbles are back with a new summer look, Fleurs de Villes ROSÉ is brightening up the streets and Art Downtown brings back the live music and the outdoor painting demos.
As of June 15th the province has entered Step 2 of the BC Restart Plan – safe and responsible travel around the province is now encouraged. If you’re from outside of British Columbia, we look forward to welcoming you back soon.
Where: Various locations around downtown Vancouver
What: Tourism Vancouver’s popular outdoor ambient experience, Love Bubbles, is back for the month of June with a new summer look! In partnership with the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre Hotel, Westin Bayshore Hotel and Hudson Pacific Properties, the new Love Bubbles will feature activations designed to spread joy and love through dance and music, by highlighting local, talented, and culturally diverse dancers and musicians at various sites around the downtown core.
Runs until June 30, 2021
Photo: Fleurs de Villes
Where: Downtown Vancouver
What: Vancouver is invited to enjoy Fleurs de Villes ROSÉ – a fresh floral trail supporting breast cancer research. This stunning showcase of floral talent will be freely open to the public and will feature over 50 floral installations, created by some of Vancouver’s favourite florists. Supported by the Downtown Vancouver and Robson Street business associations, Fleurs de Villes ROSÉ will be freely open to the public, and visitors will be able to safely walk through this self-guided trail through the downtown core. Visitors can pick up a map or scan a QR code at 800 Robson Plaza, on the South side of the Vancouver Art Gallery, to begin the trail.
Runs until June 20, 2021
Artist: Mona Novin / Photo credit: Art Downtown
Where: Lot 19 (855 West Hastings)
What: Art Downtown is Vancouver’s public eco-arts festival – a sixteen week, free, community-oriented event where artists, performers and audiences deepen their connections to each other on the beautiful Coast Salish landscape. Our home, downtown Vancouver, is illuminated with an animated celebration of environmental and social justice inspired art and performance, produced by Vancouver Visual Art Foundation, a non-profit society.
Runs until September 30, 2021
Photo credit: Bill Reid Gallery
National Indigenous Peoples Day
Where: Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art
What: Enjoy the Hands of Knowledge and To Speak With A Golden Voice exhibitions, honour and celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day. Free admission all day.
Sunday, June 20, 2021
Where: FlyOver Canada
What: Chase the wind on an unforgettable all-ages flying ride over Hawaii. FlyOver Canada presents Hawaii From Above, a soaring, sense-awakening journey over island and ocean.
Runs until August 15, 2021
Prince of Whales: Father’s Day Special
Where: All Prince of Whales locations
What: Show your dad how much you care by showing him some whales! Prince of Whales will be celebrating dads by offering a complimentary Whale Watching tour on their big boats at all locations. Please call to book.
Sunday, June 20, 2021
Photo: Lavenderland Farm
Where: Richmond
What: Lavenderland is an 8 Acres leisure farm, including some agricultural facilities and 7 Acres lavender farm. It’s the perfect place for kids to celebrate nature, for people to find peace, and for families to enjoy each other’s company. The soft opening is on June 19th, 2021.
Open until October 10, 2021
Photo: Forbidden Vancouver
Forbidden Vancouver: The Dark Secrets of Stanley Park Tour
Where: Stanley Park
What: Discover the jaw-dropping beauty – and sinister stories – of Stanley Park. Behind those majestic forests, picturesque gardens and stunning beaches lies a history of hidden graveyards, shocking crime scenes, and the ghostly lore of Deadman’s Island.
Runs every Saturday & Sunday
Photo: Wings and Wizards
Where: BC Place Stadium
What: ‘Welcome, wizard apprentice…We have been waiting for you!’ Wings and Wizards is an interactive, touch-free exhibit that merges world-building, art, tech, storytelling, and design to create a truly sublime magical adventure that promises to bring a little magic back into the lives of the young and young-at-heart! Gather your wizarding bubble and join for an adventure full of magic and mystery.
Runs until September 6, 2021
Photo: PNE
Where: Pacific National Exhibition
What: Vancouver’s favourite amusement park is open for another season of family fun, thrills, games, attractions, and good mood food! Enterprise, Scrambler, and Hell’s Gate will be part of this season’s ride offering! Playland will continue to make safety its top priority. Operating with significantly reduced capacities, physical distancing, enhanced cleaning procedures, and masks will be required on rides and in all queue lines.
Runs until September 11, 2021
Photo credit: Leila Kwok
Where: Market Square, Southlands, Delta
What: Fresh local produce and artisan goods, including jewelry, wine and meats, from our local farmers, Salt and Harrow and vendors such as Chaerea Jewellery, Vancouver Island Berries, Desirée Blooms and English Bay Mini Donuts and more! Entertainment and pop-up children’s art classes delivered by Nook Play Studio will add to the character and enjoyment of the markets.
Runs on Saturdays until December 18, 2021
Photo credit: Bill Reid Gallery
Where: Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art
What: Hands of Knowledge is a collaborative exhibition featuring six contemporary Indigenous women artists, developed by Ts’msyen curator Joanne Finlay. Women can be powerful matriarchs, important knowledge keepers, cultural connectors, and the foundation of the family. Each artist celebrates traditional knowledge through contemporary works that explore sight, time, supernatural energy and spirituality. Many are connected to personal and family history and stories passed down to them as part of their lineage. Using insight, awareness and reflection, the artists look to the sights and times of their mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers, to view how women have influenced their work.
Runs until September 26, 2021
Courtesy of the Artist: Whess Harman
Vancouver Special: Disorientations and Echo
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: Vancouver Special: Disorientations and Echo will be the second in what is envisioned as a series of exhibitions intended to provide an expansive look at contemporary art in the Greater Vancouver region. For the 2021 version of Vancouver Special, primary emphasis is on recent works that hold a particular resonance for this time and place that have not been previously exhibited in Vancouver. The exhibition will reflect the activity of both artists at an early point in their career and more established artists whose practices span several decades. Encompassing a variety of media, scale and modes of presentation, the artworks that comprise the exhibition address themes that include cultural resilience, the articulation of suppressed histories, the performance of identity and embodied knowledge.
Runs until Sunday, January 22, 2021
Photo credit: Andréa Saunier
“Street of India” Exhibition by Andréa Saunier
Where: Le Centre Culturel Francophone de Vancouver
What: A multi-talented artist, filmmaker, photographer, and writer, Andréa Saunier will exhibit her photographic series named “Street of India” at Le Centre Culturel. “Suspended moments captured. Inspired, unexpected, spontaneous. India soothed me. This is what lingers with me from this country, the connection with self to connect more deeply with the external world. Letting go. An invitation to silence. A bubble of tenderness”.
Runs until July 1, 2021
Photo credit: Imagine Van Gogh
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: Science World
Where: Science World
What: Arctic Voices takes visitors on a riveting journey over the tundra and into the world’s northernmost biome. Enjoy an immersive experience of the fascinating, changing Arctic through its many voices: its people, ecology, wildlife and way of life. Dance with auroras, hop on ice floes and learn just how deeply connected we are to the Arctic through this feature exhibition that will leave you awestruck and inspired.
Runs until September 6, 2021
Bill Reid carving the Skidegate Pole, 1976. Oil on canvas, by Chris Hopkins
Where: Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art
What: Launched in July 2020, the exhibition is a centennial birthday celebration of Bill Reid, who was born in 1920. The exhibition tells the story of Reid’s creative journey through four distinct sections: Voice, Process, Lineage, and Legacy. Curated by Gwaai Edenshaw—considered to be Reid’s last apprentice—the exhibition includes audio narratives, literary excerpts, rarely seen sketchbooks and casting molds, and short films, as well as newly commissioned works by Haida artist Cori Savard and singer-songwriter Kinnie Starr. It also includes the addition of two new artworks—the Eagle and Beaver Pole (1980) by Haida carver Reg Davidson and an exquisitely carved cedar door, designed by Bill Reid and carved by James Hart in 1980—as well as the anticipated commemorative book: Bill Reid, To Speak With a Golden Voice.
Runs until September 6, 2021
Canoe Cultures: Building a Legacy
Where: Vancouver Maritime Museum
What: Indigenous communities have travelled the waterways of their ancestors since time immemorial. The canoe is a vital element of coastal Indigenous life. Canoe Cultures: Building a Legacy showcases the work of the Canoe Cultures program, an initiative to teach young people to build racing canoes. Includes historical images and recent activities. Runs until August 2, 2021
Photo credit: Stefano Benazzo
Where: Vancouver Maritime Museum
What: Silent Witness features a collection of photographs by Italian photographer and artist Stefano Benazzo who has spent decades seeking shipwrecks from some of the most remote locations around the globe. His work narrates the scenes of these wrecks with light and portrays the soul of the abandoned vessels. The photographs in Silent Witness tell the story of decay for these ships, capturing their architecture and presenting them as sculptures embedded in the landscape.
Runs until July 18, 2021
Photo credit: Museum of Anthropology
A Future for Memory: Art and Life After the Great East Japan Earthquake
Where: Museum of Anthropology at UBC
What: The exhibition coincides with the 10th anniversary of the 2011 triple disaster that saw a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown hit the eastern region of Japan. A Future for Memory highlights nature’s destructive impact on humans and its regenerative potential, and explores how humans live in harmony with nature. It also examines how new connections and relationships have developed in the aftermath of this tragic event.
Runs until September 5, 2021
Photo credit: Vancouver Art Gallery
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: Sun Xun is a mid-career Chinese artist who works in a range of mediums including painting, drawing, animation, video and installation. In his highly imaginative video installation Mythological Time (2016), Sun takes viewers on a journey through his hometown of Fuxin in northern China, a coal-mining centre facing the depletion of its economic lifeblood. Sun’s video installation from the Gallery’s collection will be presented alongside a major 30-metre ink painting, being shown for the first time.
Runs until September 6, 2021
Photo credit: Museum of Vancouver
Where: Museum of Vancouver
What: The Museum of Vancouver and the University of British Columbia proudly present a new feature exhibition, A Seat at the Table, Chinese Immigration and British Columbia. This exhibition explores historical and contemporary stories of Chinese Canadians in BC and their struggles for belonging. It looks to food and restaurant culture as an entry point to feature stories that reveal the great diversity of immigrant experience and of the communities immigrants develop.
Runs until January 2022
Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site
Waves of Innovation: Stories from the West Coast
Where: Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site
What: The exhibition features stories of adaptations and innovations in the commercial fishing industry and their effects on west coast communities. Four key areas of innovation will be highlighted – energy, fishing, preservation, and innovations of today. Quotes from the diverse fishing communities and examples of artifacts from each area of innovation will be featured, alongside interactive displays which will help visitors of all ages and backgrounds explore the question – What does innovation mean to you?
Runs until April 15, 2022
Courtesy of and Copyright by The Leon Polk Smith Foundation, New York City. Photo by Adam Reich.
Leon Polk Smith: Big Form, Big Space
Where: The Contemporary Art Gallery
What: The first solo exhibition in a public gallery in Canada by American artist Leon Polk Smith (1906-1996). Focusing on paintings and works on paper from the 1950s, the exhibition charts a critical moment in Smith’s artistic career in which the signature visual language of his work began to manifest, reflective both of prevalent trends of the time and an increasing engagement with the contexts of his upbringing and identity. Big Form, Big Space provides a timely opportunity to re-evaluate Smith’s place within art history, looking beyond the strict appreciation of his place within hard-edge modernist abstraction to encompass broader considerations of context, time and identity.
Runs until August 20, 2021
Vancouver Maritime Museum: Raven Tales and Medicine Pouch Workshop – Online
Celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day with stories based in Kwakwaka’wakw culture and a hands-on healing medicine pouch workshop. At this virtual event, Simon Winadzi James will share stories of his people, and screen an animated story, Raven Tales Dream Dream Dream. After the stories, Shona Sparrow will lead a workshop in the making of a healing medicine pouch. As she shares the traditional knowledge involved with making a medicine pouch, Sparrow will talk about connecting with the land and water and about Indigenous values, connecting the medicines, land, family and bringing community together.
Saturday, June 19, 2021
Kawaguchi + Takase 2014, Photo credit: Chris Randle
Vancouver International Dance Festival – Online
The Vancouver International Dance Festival celebrates its 21st season with 18 livestream contemporary dance performances. Broadcast from the KW Production Studio, the 2021 VIDF presents cinematic perspectives of contemporary dance streamed live to wherever you are. This weekend Vancouver’s Company 605 will present Brimming (April 29-30 & May 1). The new solo investigating the body as a container was created and performed by its co-artistic director Josh Martin.
Streaming until June 19, 2021
