Nakatamaakewin

Schools and communities are invited to learn about contemporary art and artists from the four regions of Nunangat, the Inuit homeland in Canada. Viewers will leave the experience with a greater understanding of our land and its people. And the best part is…we are bringing art to you!

In many communities and nations, Indigenous cultural practices have been pushed underground by colonizing forces. Kakiniit Hivonighijotaa: Inuit Embodied Practices and Meanings highlights the strength and resilience of Inuit culture in the face of intense suppression.

Kwaata-nihtaawakihk – A Hard Birth will prompt you to reflect on the Métis nation’s role in Manitoba’s creation and consider the significance of the events of 1869-70 in relation to our current times.

At first glance, landscape paintings tend to conduct themselves as transparent historical documents, showing us a clear image of the environments upon which our contemporary lives were built. This exhibition explores the landscapes of western Canada through the aestheticized lenses of Walter J. Phillips and a selection of his contemporaries.

The first impressions of the enormous works in Wanda Koop’s View from Here are starkness and intensity. The evocative paintings feature prominent landscapes composed within the bald outline of a face, erasing the comfortable familiarity we have with both landscape and portrait.

The sketches, drawings, studies, repeated images, and unfinished works of Ivan Eyre allow us a glimpse into the artist’s process. Produced with a freer hand, using economical, malleable materials like paper, board, ink pens, graphite, and coloured pencils, drawing allowed for what Eyre described as “fewer distractions” for ideas to emerge.

During summer months, the WAG’s Rooftop Sculpture Garden is open for all to enjoy! A striking selection of 20th and 21st century bronze, steel, and stone sculptures by Canadian and European artists will keep you company.

To Play in the Face of Certain Defeat is a celebration of diversity and an urgent call to action around issues of racial marginalization. Artist Esmaa Mohamoud explores the ways in which Black bodies at once appear—and yet are rendered metaphorically invisible—within the spaces they navigate.

Uncover the stories behind the art and artists with a 45-60-minute guided tour by our trained volunteers on select Saturday afternoons.

The WAG’s premier fundraising gala benefitting young people in our community.

Transmissions is an exhibition exploring the production and passing on of knowledge through embodied processes. Embodied knowledge is learned and shared through actions and practices, and recognizes the material experiences related to the body. Each of us holds embodied knowledge that we access through life experience. It may show up as emotional or bodily responses, or as connections to the world around us that are hard to describe.

INUA is the inaugural exhibition of Qaumajuq, the new Inuit art centre at the WAG. See work by over 90 Inuit artists working across Inuit Nunangat and beyond.

Robert Houle is one of the most influential First Nations artists in the contemporary art world. Robert Houle: Red is Beautiful will feature over 90 large installations, paintings and drawings created between 1970 and 2020.

Your permanent collection is back on view! Revisit old favourites from our European & Canadian collections, plus a few lesser-seen works.