Ali Cherri & Summer 2026 Programming at Oakville Galleries

Oakville Galleries presents Ali Cherri’s inaugural solo exhibition in Canada, alongside The Ship of Tolerance by Ilya & Emilia Kabakov and the avant-garde film festival, Sunset Kino. Need a ride to Oakville? Get on the ARTbus (details below).

Images (left to right): Ali Cherri, still from The Watchman, 2023. Courtesy the artist, Fondazione In Between Art Film, and Galerie Imane Farès, Paris. Ali Cherri, Seated Figure, 2022, View of the exhibition Ali Cherri: How I Am Monument, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 2025. Photo: Reece Straw © 2025 Baltic.

Ali Cherri: To Fall, Patiently

June 13 – October 3, 2026
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 13, 2 – 5pm
Gairloch Gardens & Centennial Square
More information >

Ali Cherri (b. 1976, Beirut) is a Paris-based artist with three decades of artistic practice spanning across film, performance, sculpture, drawing, and installations. Awarded the Silver Lion at the 2022 Venice Biennale, and exhibited in leading museums around the world, Ali Cherri presents films, sculptures and watercolour paintings in both our galleries as well as in Gairloch Gardens.

Highly influenced by the Lebanese postwar art scene, Ali Cherri’s complex body of work interrogates how histories and currencies of political violence resonate through generations as well as physical and cultural landscapes, objects and places.

At the Gairloch Gallery, Ali Cherri presents a series of sculptures, assembled elegantly between different materials, each a hybrid involving ancient artifacts found by the artist in auctions or marketplaces. Adjacent to the sculptures is a series of watercolour paintings and the film Of Men and Gods and Mud, which explores the relationship between humans, labour, and the environment in northern Sudan. Two sculptures by Ali Cherri will be installed outdoors in the sculpture garden of Gairloch Gardens: The bronze sculpture The Tree of Life re-interprets ancient Assyrian reliefs of a sacred tree, while the neon sculpture Les (Sur)Vivants poetically references the perils of surviving catastrophe. As part of our summer program, Ali Cherri also presents two evenings of his films as part of Sunset Kino.

At the Centennial Gallery, the artist presents the film The Watchman. Set in Cyprus, the film features a soldier on watch at the edge of no-man’s land between the Greek Cypriot south and the Turkish Cypriot north. As with much of Cherri’s work, the film concerns itself with questions of borders and the challenges they enact upon ideas of sovereignty, identity, and geopolitical realities.

The rich tapestry of Ali Cherri’s work oscillates between history and memory, realities of violence and residues of trauma, political spectacle and the stuff of dreams, ancient objects and myth and sensuality, death and survival, fragility and resilience, materiality and mortality, and museal knowledge and its ruins. The exhibition is supported by TD Bank Group.

The Ship of Tolerance, Ilya &Emilia Kabakov and the children of Canada, Gairloch Gardens, 2025. Photo: Jimmy Limit.

Ilya & Emilia Kabakov: The Ship of Tolerance

On view until September 30, 2026
Gairloch Gardens
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After workshops with over 3000 children on ideas of tolerance and humanitarianism, new sails are being raised on The Ship of Tolerance. These painted sails weave together diverse voices into a visual narrative of hope, inspiring audiences to reflect on tolerance and our shared humanity. This anti-war sculpture rejects deference to hegemonic power and speaks to better, alternative futures, which we are free to create.

Presented in partnership with the Ilya and Emilia Kabakov Foundation and the National Gallery of Canada. The National Gallery of Canada’s National Engagement initiative is generously supported by Michael Nesbitt, with additional funding from the National Gallery of Canada Foundation. The Ship of Tolerance has recently received both the Visit Oakville Tourism Award and the RTO3 Regional Partnership & Collaboration Award.

Sunset Kino screening, Gairloch Gardens, 2025. Photo: Jonathan Grimes.

Sunset Kino

June 25 – July 16, 2026
Gairloch Gardens
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Founded by Séamus Kealy in Salzburg in 2017, Sunset Kino is the world’s only transnational, outdoor, avant-garde film festival. Commencing at sunset, audiences experience programs of artists’ films and videos. This year’s theme “In Ruins” is inspired by Ali Cherri’s exhibition and features films by Ali Cherri and programming by Séamus Kealy, Jenifer Papararo and Rinaldo Walcott.

ARTbus: Summer 2026 Exhibition Tour
Oakville Galleries x Art Gallery of Burlington

Saturday, June 13, 2026, 11:30am – 6:00pm
Pick-up and drop-off at 66 Dufferin Park Avenue, Toronto
$20 donation includes transportation to all galleries and afternoon refreshments
Sign up today >

Our Summer ARTbus begins at the Art Gallery of Burlington for a guided tour of Celina Eceiza’s A material called Earth, Volume 1: The life of corners, curated by Sylvie Fortin and Locutions: Fragments out of a Deluge by Chukwudubem Ukaigwe. From there, the journey continues to Oakville Galleries, where participants will experience Ali Cherri’s To Fall, Patiently across both gallery sites: Centennial Square and Gairloch Gardens

Oakville Galleries is a contemporary art museum presenting international and Canadian artists. Housed in a unique lakeside mansion and park as well as a white cube gallery downtown, Oakville Galleries is one of Canada’s leading contemporary art institutions. The Executive Director is Séamus Kealy. Supported by The Town of Oakville, Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council, sponsors, patrons and members.

Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens
1306 Lakeshore Road East
Oakville, ON L6J 1L6

Oakville Galleries at Centennial Square
120 Navy Street
Oakville, ON L6J 2Z4

For more information:
oakvillegalleries.com
905.844.4402
info@oakvillegalleries.com

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