Announcing the Art Museum’s Fall 2023 Exhibition Season

Celebrate the opening reception of The Children Have to Hear Another Story and The Performance of Shadows on Wednesday, September 6

Alanis Obomsawin filming Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child, 1986. Courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada and the artist.

The Children Have to Hear Another Story: Alanis Obomsawin

Opening Night: Wednesday, September 6, 2023, 6pm–8pm
Exhibition runs through November 25
Art Museum at the University of Toronto
University of Toronto Art Centre

The ground-breaking retrospective celebrates the lifework of filmmaker, artist, and activist Alanis Obomsawin, one of the most acclaimed Indigenous directors in the world. The exhibition will feature unprecedented access not only to Obomsawin’s films, but also to the archives related to their production. Presented decade by decade, it is a comprehensive overview of her films, artworks, prints, and music along with ephemera, documents, and media coverage that provide new insight into her work.

Organized by Richard William Hill and Hila Peleg and made possible through a partnership between Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Art Museum at the University of Toronto, and Vancouver Art Gallery in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada, and by the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Embassy of Canada, Berlin, and CBC/Radio Canada. This project has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada. Additional support has been provided by ISO (Indigenous Screen Office).

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Public Programs

Opening Reception: Fall 2023 Exhibitions
Wednesday, September 6, 6pm–8pm

Opening remarks will take place at 6:30pm at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery in Hart House and at 7:00pm at the University of Toronto Art Centre in University College. Read more.

Artist and Curatorial Tour: The Children Have to Hear Another Story
Saturday, September 9, 2pm–4pm
University of Toronto Art Centre

A guided, public tour of the exhibition with Alanis Obomsawin and Richard William Hill, Smith Jarislowsky Senior Curator of Canadian Art at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Register.

Art Crawl with ImagineNATIVE
Wednesday, October 18, 4pm–10pm

Visit local artist-run centres and see national and international exhibitions featuring Indigenous artists who continue to push the boundaries and expectations of what Indigenous storytelling is. Stops include Onsite Gallery, A Space, TSV, YYZ, Bachir-Yerix, and the Art Museum. The Art Crawl ends with a closing party at the AGO. Registration required. Read more.

Alanis Obomsawin: In Conversation with Cameron Bailey
Thursday, November 16, 4:30pm–6pm
University College

Alanis Obomsawin will speak about her lifework, Indigenous storytelling, and activism through her films, drawings, and music. Registration required. Read more.

Tim Whiten, Respite, 2019. Crushed resourced glass, wood, gel medium, Aqua-Resin, acrylic paint, 10″ x 30″ x 12″. Photo by Karen Asher.

The Performance of Shadows

Opening Night: Wednesday, September 6, 2023, 6pm–8pm
Exhibition runs through November 25
Art Museum at the University of Toronto
Justina M. Barnicke Gallery

Works by: Betye Saar, Tim Whiten, Erika DeFreitas

The Performance of Shadows explores intuition as a condition of consciousness. The exhibition considers three artists’ various approaches involving phenomenology, spirituality, and political engagement, presenting expansive understandings of existence. Curated by Lillian O’Brien Davis.

The exhibition is presented in partnership with the School of Art Gallery, University of Manitoba with the generous support of Michael F. B. Nesbitt.

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Public Programs

Curatorial Tour with Lillian O’Brien Davis
Saturday, October 7, 2pm–3pm
Justina M. Barnicke Gallery

Curator Lillian O’Brien Davis leads a guided, public tour of the exhibition featuring works by three artists who embrace intuitive intelligence. Register.

Jordan King, Untitled, 2020. Polaroid, 3.5 x 4.5 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts

Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 13, 2023, 4pm–6pm
Exhibition runs through June 21, 2024
Jackman Humanities Institute
170 St. George St., 10th Floor

Works by: Kasra Jalilipour, Jordan King, Kama La Mackerel, Hazel Meyer and Cait McKinney, Lan “Florence” Yee

Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts grapples with the absences, erasures, and censorships that colour the queer and trans archive, seeking forms of documentation, storytelling, and memory-keeping that serve marginalized communities. Responding to the Jackman Humanities Institute’s 2023-24 research theme Absence, the exhibition interrogates the gaps that puncture the queer and trans archive, making visible their political nature and proposing strategies for a future of queer and trans history-making that refuses the lens of the oppressor. Through fiction-making, critical imagining, and revisionism, the artists in Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts gesture at and supplement histories of queer and trans people that are insufficient, compromised, colonial, or simply absent.

The exhibition is presented in partnership with the Jackman Humanities Institute.

Visiting the Art Museum

Justina M. Barnicke Gallery
(in Hart House)
7 Hart House Circle
Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H3

University of Toronto Art Centre
(in University College)
15 King’s College Circle
Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H7

Admission is free. All are welcome.

Museum Hours
Tuesday to Saturday, 12 noon–5pm
Wednesday, 12 noon–8pm
Sunday and Monday closed

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Our Supporters
The Art Museum at the University of Toronto gratefully acknowledges operating support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council.

Media Contact: Marianne Rellin, marianne.rellin@utoronto.ca