Ed Pien: Present: Past/Future

Dalhousie Art Gallery

Ed Pien, Clementina marks her birthday by dyeing her hair blue and swimming in the ocean for the first time in 30 years, November 2022. Digital print. Courtesy of the artist, Elegoa Cultural Productions, Birch Contemporary, and Pierre-François Ouellette Art Contemporain.

Ed Pien: Present: Past/Future

May 8 – August 16, 2026
Opening Reception, Talk, and Tour: Thursday, May 7, 2026, 6:00 – 8:00pm
Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax

Dalhousie Art Gallery is pleased to present Present: Past/Future, an ongoing multimedia project by artist Ed Pien, developed through long-term relationships with the same group of elders in San Agustín, Cuba. Since 2014, Pien has returned regularly to San Agustín, building the project through conversation, photography, video, and the exchange of meaningful belongings. Over more than a decade, the work has grown through trust and shared experience, becoming both an artistic collaboration and a living archive.

At Dalhousie Art Gallery, Present: Past/Future takes shape as a site-responsive installation incorporating locally sourced materials, reconfigured furniture, photography, personal objects, and moving images. Together, these elements evoke the instability of domestic space and reflect on how memory is carried through bodies, interiors, and relationships. Set against the pressures of contemporary Cuba, including ongoing economic hardship and instability in daily life, the project does not reduce its participants to symbols of crisis. Instead, it affirms their dignity, humour, and continuing presence.

The exhibition holds space for the complexity of aging and for lives lived across changing personal and political conditions. In K’jipuktuk/Halifax, within Mi’kma’ki, these encounters find quiet echoes, linking geographies through shared experiences of survival, strength, and cultural continuity.

Organized and circulated by Elegoa Cultural Productions, the exhibition is co-curated by Catherine Sicot and Pamela Edmonds. It is accompanied by a trilingual publication in English, French, and Spanish, produced by the artist, Elegoa Cultural Productions, and Le Centre Sagamie, Montréal, with support from host institutions as well as Birch Contemporary, Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, and private donor Carlos Yep.

Opening Reception, Talk, and Tour

Thursday, May 7, 2026, 6:00 – 8:00pm
Dalhousie Arts Centre, 6101 University Avenue, Halifax
Admission is free and all are welcome.

About the Artist

Ed Pien is a Taiwanese-born Canadian artist who received an Honours Bachelor of Fine Arts from Western University and an MFA from York University. He has exhibited extensively in Canada and internationally, including at the Drawing Center, New York; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris; the Goethe-Institut, Berlin; the Art Gallery of Ontario; the National Gallery of Canada; and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. He has also participated in the Montréal Biennale, the Biennale of Sydney, Oh, Canada at MASS MoCA, the Moscow Biennale, and the Beijing International Art Biennale.

About Dalhousie Art Gallery

Since 1953, Dalhousie Art Gallery has provided dynamic leadership in visual arts programming. The oldest public art gallery in Nova Scotia, the Gallery is an academic support unit within the educational and research context of Dalhousie University and serves as a public art gallery and cultural resource for the wider community. Through exhibitions, research, publications, visiting speakers, public programs, guided tours, and its permanent collection, the Gallery promotes visual literacy and facilitates critical engagement with contemporary and historical art.

Dalhousie Art Gallery is located in K’jipuktuk, on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. This land is governed by the Treaties of Peace and Friendship, which Mi’kmaq, Wəlastəkwiyik (Maliseet), and Passamaquoddy Peoples first signed with the British Crown in 1725. The treaties did not deal with surrender of lands and resources, but recognized Mi’kmaq and Wəlastəkwiyik title and established the rules for what was to be an ongoing relationship between nations. We also recognize African Nova Scotians as a distinct people whose contributions have enriched that part of Mi’kma’ki known as Nova Scotia for over 400 years.

Dalhousie Art Gallery
Dalhousie Arts Centre, lower level
6101 University Avenue
Halifax, NS B3H 1W8
artgallery.dal.ca
art.gallery@dal.ca
902-494-2403

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Gallery Hours:
Wednesday and Friday, 11:00am – 5:00pm
Thursday, 11:00am – 8:00pm
Saturday and Sunday, 12:00 – 5:00pm

Admission is always free.

Accessibility:
Dalhousie Art Gallery is partially accessible. The Gallery is located on the lower level of the Dalhousie Arts Centre. There is a permanent ramp at the front entrance on University Avenue, automatic doors, elevator access to the Gallery, seating in the Gallery, and a wheelchair available onsite. Some access routes and washrooms may involve grade changes or construction-related disruptions. For more information, visit: artgallery.dal.ca/accessibility-information

Image Descriptions:
1. A digital print documenting Clementina, a participant in Present: Past/Future, marking her birthday by dyeing her hair blue and swimming in the ocean for the first time in 30 years.