re:materia exhi’pit
Open Gallery
October 26, 2024 to January 25, 2025
re:materia exhi’pit is a participatory artistic installation and exhibition space launched at the Early Childhood Educators of BC (ECEBC) Conference in May of 2024 as an invitation for early childhood educators and their allies across the province of BC to take up the difficult labour of disrupting the capitalist citizenship that supports the extractive cycle of consumption and waste production. The installation is hosted by the re:materia program, a partnership between the Early Childhood Pedagogy Network (ECPN) and ECEBC that invites early childhood educators to creatively and critically reimagine pedagogical processes and curriculum-making around waste.
Summer Camp: Land and Home
Open Gallery
September 14 to October 19, 2024
Curated by Nicole Favron, Ian Laurrabaquio, and Adrian Romeo
While creating these works, we thought of the ways land makes us feel. What does home mean to us? How do landscapes shape us?
The artworks included here were created over the course of eight weeks by 160 artists aged 5 to 12 enrolled in Kamloops Art Gallery Summer Camp.
Inspired by the artists and artworks in Town + Country: Narratives of Property and Capital, young artists explored materials, concepts, and techniques represented by the many artists in the exhibition.
We hope that you will take your time exploring the artworks created here this summer and join us in celebrating the work of these incredible young artists.
So Long As They’re Friends: Queer Safety On This Side of the Rainbow
Open Gallery
August 10 to September 7, 2024
Curated by Teresa Donck-Matlock
So Long As They’re Friends; Queer Safety on This Side of the Rainbow presents traces of how queer folks have created safety within conditions of criminalization and discrimination, and creates a space for education and dialogue around 2SLGBTQPIA+ topics.
Black Odyssey: Past, Present, and Future
Open Gallery
June 8 to August 3, 2024
Hardley Williams and The Unique Get Together Society
Presented in collaboration with Hardley Williams and The Unique Get Together Society, Black Odyssey illuminates the past, embraces the present, and envisions the future of the Black community in Kamloops. The Open Gallery features art posters spotlighting local Black community leaders, who will be in attendance at a free gathering on June 15 in the Kamloops Art Gallery Studios (on the main floor of the TNRD building). With awareness and understanding at its core, this initiative is open to everyone interested in learning and sharing about the Black experience in Kamloops.
Spring Art Camp
Open Gallery
April 20 to June 1, 2024
Curated by Kristen Gardner and Emily Hope
The artworks included in this exhibition were created over the course of two weeks by 40 artists aged 5 to 12 enrolled in the Kamloops Art Gallery’s Spring Art Camp.
No Boundaries: History and Progress in Microbiology Research
Open Gallery
January 20 to April 6, 2024
Naowarat Cheeptham, professor of science, Thompson Rivers University.
As an academic cave microbiology researcher and educator, I have headed the TRU Cave Microbiology laboratory since 2002 with an indelible commitment to be a part of microbiology educators’ communities debunking ungrounded concerns about microorganisms.
RESONANT OBJECTS
Open Gallery
December 6, 2023 to January 13, 2024
This community art project was inspired by the idea that the objects we keep in our lives embody some significance to us and hold our stories. Through conversation, self-reflection, and explorations of Deanna Bowen’s exhibition Black Drones in the Hive, participants were invited to consider their relationships with objects. Which objects in our lives hold meaning? What gets saved and why? How do we decide which objects tell our story?
THE COMMUNITY ARCHIVE PROJECT
KAG Visitors
Open Gallery
October 25 to December 2, 2023
Organized by Emily Hope
How people and events are memorialized often offers clues to who is doing the memorializing. While history is often understood as permanent and fixed, what if it were told from another perspective?
PROCESS, PRODUCT, MINDSET
Kiyana Basworo // Willow Beers // Benjamin Branch // Hannah Durant // Tarynne Gray // Ruby Liddy // Jade Matthews // Ze McDaniel // Jasmine Thomas // Aidan Wiggil
Open Gallery
July 15 to August 26, 2023
Curated by Simone Olanski
What inspires creation?
Process, Product, Mindset, portrays the artwork of 10 youth interns who were brought together for two weeks to collaborate on a group exhibition which expresses their identity through art. They chose to showcase their individuality by bringing their personalities to life through different styles and forms of art. The interns chose to ask themselves what inspires them to create.
THE COSMIC SYMPHONY OF INTERGALACTIC CHAOS
bunchofsickness // Clementine Clark // Ryder Dobson // Jahree James // Rowan Jensen // Michelle Jones // Kira Makela // NAPCOLORS // Vasualha Nikku // Riffia // SAFO // Shades // Huxley Wendland III Esq. // Sophia Westwood // Emily Wood // WORMLORD
Open Gallery
April 15 to June 24, 2023
Curated by Chris Bose and Charlie Napoleon
This exhibition shares the work of The Fierce Unicorn Shadow Masterminds Artists Collective. Lead by KAG Youth Programs Coordinator Chris Bose, this program engages a determined and dedicated group of young artists who meet weekly in the Kamloops Art Gallery studios to explore multi-media.
HEBREW SPELLED BACKWARDS (תירִבעִ)
Lindsey Tyne Johnson
Open Gallery
January 21 to April 1, 2023
In her exhibition, Hebrew Spelled Backwards, Lindsey Tyne Johnson examines the complexities of identifying as Jewish and the fear and uncertainty that often come with it. Through a combination of modern, spiritual, and Jewish themes, Johnson explores discovering one's ancestry later in life and its connection to familiar experiences and art. By challenging people to learn more about cultures they may not understand, Johnson aims to create a space for dialogue and inclusivity.
WITH THE GATHERING TREE
Open Gallery
October 1 to December 31, 2022
This exhibition narrates children's dialogues with a 50-year-old maple tree located in the middle of the playground in an early childhood education centre in Kamloops. Drawing and dialoguing in the company of the maple tree, children reimagine their relations with the world and its inhabitants.
Through carefully crafted pedagogical propositions, educators and pedagogist invite children to invent ethical relations with plant companions as they collectively gather around the maple tree. In this way, following slow educational processes, they extend the usual focus on facts and science, and invite children to imagine other possibilities for relating to the world. As the documentation shows, ploddingly, the tree and its companions become central protagonists in children’s relations with the world.
EXPLORATIONS: A SUMMER OF ART
Open Gallery
August 25 to September 25, 2022
Presenting artwork from each summer art camp artist, Explorations: A Summer of Art, celebrates a summer full of learning, creativity, and fun. Artworks are grouped by medium, including watercolour, ink drawings, single and multi-layer relief prints, and acrylic paintings.
Generously sponsored by Watson Engineering Ltd.
YOUTH UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Seharaab Baidwan // Zero Bethell // Melissa Cadena // Victoria Decaire // Joceyln De Luna // Arseniia Kobzareva // Ashley Martens // Klaira Neilsen // Yanneck Signoretti // Katie Willms
Open Gallery
July 16 to August 20, 2022
Artwork created by the participants of the summer youth intern program.
This program is generously sponsored by the Edwina and Paul Heller Memorial Fund with the Vancouver Foundation.
LOST IN AN AMBIENT CHAOS WITH A MISH MASH OF THE RIFF RAFF, WHILE FIGHTING CHUCK E. CHEESE IN THE PARKING LOT.
Chris Bose // Susie Dyck // Avery Froste // Billie Jean Gabriel // Leo Hill // Kira Makela // Charlie Napoleon // Monique Reiswig // The Wormlord
Open Gallery
February 17 to April 2, 2022
Over the past year, the artists in the Fierce Shadow Unicorn Masterminds Artist Collective have experimented with new creative mediums and collaborations while sharing ideas and having discussions, jokes and laughter, and some moments of solemn serious real talk, all while making art. We’ve become good friends, dedicated artists, and continue to make new art and explore new directions every day, and every week. We keep returning to support each other and encourage each other to keep going. You get better as an artist by putting in the time and you learn and grow as a person by being with people who have your back and support you creatively. That’s what this exhibition is all about.
IDENTITY
Emily Boone // Maddy Chalmers-Owega // Hunter Cook // Eva Dickinson // Kora Ellison // Rowan Jensen // Charlie Lively-Love // Keighan MacNeill // Kira Makela
Open Gallery
November 4 to December 31, 2021
Throughout the months of July and August, ten artists aged 14 to 21 worked with lead artist and facilitator Chris Bose towards the development of a studio program for youth and the creation of their own art work. Themes of self-expression, materiality, and surface design emerged as key areas of interest and exploration, and this exhibition is the culmination of their independent and collaborative efforts to investigate how to express their own identity through art.
ART IN ISOLATION
Open Gallery
August 23 to September 18, 2021
Curated by Nathan O’Connor and Monique Reiswig
Art in Isolation was a program inspired by how art, while often created in isolation, is a powerful medium that can connect people across time and space. Over the past 18 months, many folks have had to adapt to working in isolation and discover new ways of staying connected within our communities. Throughout the summer, we invited artists of all ages to participate in the creation of a collaborative mural and share their stories with us, answering the question: “How has art given you strength this past year?”
CEL-CELA BASKET PATTERN
Chris Bose
Open Gallery
July 17 to August 21, 2021
This huckleberry basket pattern is based on one from my great granny from way back and is part of a collection of baskets we used for ages and were passed down in the family from granny to daughters and sons. Baskets were incredibly strong and woven from red cedar root and red willow as well as indian hemp and other fibrous plants to create the intricate patterns and colours that told stories and family history. Each matriarch had their own patterns and each family as well, just like our songs and names, it was regional and the nlaka’pamux territory was mountainous and held a lot of stories and important history.
STOP ASIAN HATE
Open Gallery
May 19 to July 3, 2021
Curated by Craig Willms, Assistant Curator
In response to the recent rise in anti-Asian racism the Kamloops Art Gallery is using the Open Gallery as a space to create awareness and generate dialogue. People of Asian descent are the largest racialized community in Canada. The Canadian government has a long history of anti-Asian policies, including the Chinese Head tax, the Chinese Immigration Act, the Komagata Maru incident, and Japanese Internment. The past year has seen an alarming rise in Anti-Asian racism in Canada, most noticeably in British Columbia.