Hear about these stunning and thought-provoking works—and the 11 BC-based artists of Playing with Fire: Ceramics of the Extraordinary, that created them—directly from the exhibition curator.

The exhibition catalogue will also be available for sale for $16.95 in the MOA Shop.

Limited capacity.

In contemporary Western cultures, there is a tendency to avoid the subject of death until it touches us, but learning about other cultures can help us pause to reflect on our own attitudes and practices. In this workshop, participants will explore the spiritual significance of funerary objects in the collections and then create a personal work inspired by these ideas in self-drying clay and paint.

Holly Ratcliffe is currently ceramic artist-in-residence at MOA.  She brings a unique combination of anthropology and theology to her own ceramics and her ongoing explorations of funerary art and practice. Before she became a potter, Holly earned an MA in anthropology and a PhD in the history of Christian spirituality. In this workshop, she shares her passion for investing clay with personal sacred meaning.

All supplies and materials included.

This event is now SOLD OUT.

Drop in to learn about the cultural significance of earthquakes around the world in MOA’s exhibition, Shake Up: Preserving What We Value through some thought-provoking questions. Then build your own earthquake-proof museum structure and test out its seismic stability on a shake-table. Earthquake shake-tables are used extensively in seismic research, as they enable engineers to move structures in a way that simulates true earthquake ground motions.

MOA’s Shake Up exhibition draws visitors’ attention to the wealth of Indigenous knowledge and culture formed around the phenomenon of earthquakes in the Northwest Coast in conjunction with earthquake science. Discover how the lessons held in Shake Up offer visitors hands-on opportunities for creative exploration.

All ages welcome.

**We are sorry to inform everyone that the Build Your Own Earthquake-Proof Museum workshop scheduled for Saturday March 14th has been cancelled. This is a precautionary measure that MOA is taking under the current COVID-19 situation to avoid museum events that involve the shared handling of materials.

MOA continues to follow the recommendations of the British Columbia Government and the University of British Columbia and remains open to the public. All other MOA programs and events will take place as advertised.

For information on how UBC continues to monitor the development of the situation, including resources, visit https://www.ubc.ca. **

Ethnographer and writer, Sultan Somjee will present a talk, “Building Museums of Peace: Decolonizing Material Culture” and students will share progress in their research. The Program for Undergraduate Research Experience (PURE) is aimed at broadening access to, and enhancing, undergraduate research experience as a central priority in UBC’s new strategic plan. Students who are participating in the program are currently researching African history and cultures in order to revise the catalogue descriptions of the museum’s Africa collections.

Kenyan-born, Sultan Somjee is a Canadian-based ethnographer and writer whose publications include Material Culture of Kenya (1994), the novel Bead Bai (2013), and the story collection Home Between Crossings (2016). For over three decades he worked on Indigenous knowledge for education, and during the 1990s—when conflicts plagued eastern Africa, he looked towards Indigenous traditions of conflict resolution. He found here the inspiration to build museums of peace as grassroots civil societies providing spaces for dialogue through performances and displays of Indigenous heritages of peace. Today, there are sixteen community-based Museums of Peace in Kenya managed by curators he has trained. In 2001, the United Nations named him one of twelve global ‘Unsung Heroes of Dialogue Among Civilizations’, and in 2002, he was appointed to the Global Advisory Board of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies.

Free and open to all.

Through the voices of women from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds, we explore what it means to be a woman—in this time, in this city, in this world. This special night at MOA features dance, rap, song, poetry, improvisation and powerful words by Vancouver’s emerging and established women artists. The night showcases the diversity, strength, breadth and depth of women’s experiences, their resilience and unique voices through the power of the arts.

International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women and also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.

Co-curated with dancer, rapper and community organizer, Kayla Vargas; JUNO-winning violinist and community organizer, Meredith Bates and singer/songwriter and musician, Chelsea D.E. Johnson.

Program schedule

Musqueam Welcome + Opening Remarks | 7 pm

Zahra Shahab | 7:10 pm
An exploration of spirituality, sexuality, and the veil through movement. Zahra looks to her Islamic past and plays with the burqa as a site of amorphous transformation.

Vancouver Improvised Arts Society | 7:25 pm
A jazz performance that celebrates the intersections of gender, race, and social status by encouraging the mingling of mediums and genres.

With Barbara Bourget (Kokoro Dance), dancer; Olivia C. Davies (O.Dela Arts), dancer; Johanna Hauser, clarinet; Andromeda Monk, bass clarinet; Marina Hasselberg, cello; Lisa Miller, keys

Kathara Pilipino Indigenous Arts Collective Society | 8:10 pm
A traditional Filipino dance performance by a community-based company dedicated to the promotion of the cultural arts and history of the Philippines Indigenous peoples.

Kaya Ko (Kayla Vargas) and Her Tribal Roots | 8:25 pm
A rap, music and dance performance from Vancouver’s powerhouse community builders and cultural connectors.

With vocalist and MC, Kaya Ko; Alyssa Amarsi, dancer; Ariane Custodio, dancer; Marisa Gold, dancer

Chelsea D.E. Johnson + Friends | 8:40 pm
Soul, funk and poetry from a Vancouver veteran musician who will also lead an interactive, soul-rising choir of women and audience in song.

With Vitoria Monterio, Corina Keeling, Desiree Dawson, Jillian Christmas, Lola Whyte, Jasmine Liddel and Ana (Nasti Weather)

All ages welcome!

At 12 pm, Debra Sloan will be begin the afternoon with a brief tour at of the Koerner European Ceramics Gallery, where Sloan’s work is featured as part of MOA’s new feature exhibition, Playing with Fire: Ceramics of the Extraordinary.  

Visitors are then invited to drop into MOA’s Learning Lab for an afternoon of all-ages fun. Discover and experiment with a variety of clay techniques, including press molding, carving, and painting. Then, take matters into your own hands by applying these techniques onto a ceramic tile that reflects your own story. Participants will then contribute their completed tile to a clay tiled stove, similar to the one exhibited in the Koerner Gallery, as they help build a new collective story.

Debra Sloan is a Vancouver-based artist who is alumni of both the Vancouver School of Art and the Emily Carr University of Art + Design. She has exhibited with and served on a variety of boards throughout British Columbia, and her work has been exhibited and published nationally and internationally. In 2015, she was honoured with the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for Craft and Design. Working mainly as a figurative artist, Sloan was the first sculptor to have ventured in the sculptor/commentary direction at the Leach Pottery in its 95-year history.

It’s a day of hands-on museum activities for the entire family at MOA, where children and teens will be inspired to make change! At lunchtime, you’ll find a host of hands-on art workshops for all ages, followed by a performance by RupLoops. Later in the afternoon, creative youth leaders dedicated to racial and climate justice will take the stage to share their work.

This event is open to children and youth—see program schedule below for age-appropriate activities. Kids under 12 should be accompanied by an adult. The event is free with museum admission, or with the Kids Take Over UBC All Access Pass.

Plus, there’s many more family activities at Kids Take Over UBC, happening all across the UBC campus. Find more info here.

Program schedule at MOA

Courtyard Tent
12 – 1:30 pm
Mural-Making — A Collective Call: A drop-in workshop where kids of all ages are invited to make their mark on a new mural. Help create a large-scale work of art that imagines what a healthy future planet and home might look like. Constructed from recycled canvas from MOA’s past exhibitions, the completed mural will serve as a colourful backdrop to the afternoon’s performances in the Great Hall.

Learning Lab
Rhythm Stick Styling: In this drop-in workshop, kids will decorate a pair of rhythm sticks created from reclaimed wood from MOA’s past exhibitions. After the workshop, participants can join a special group performance and use their newly personalized beat-making instruments!

Textiles Research Room
Line x Line – Word Play Workshop with Ruby Smith Diaz: Create rhymes and verses that capture our transforming world. This poetry workshop with artist and musician Ruby Smith Diaz will encourage youth and teens to stretch their lyrical imagination through prompts and collective writing activities. Participants will help imagine a future of collective care and mutual aid through the power of words. No poetry experience necessary.

Great Hall
2 – 2:30 pm
Performance by RupLoops: Audience members are encouraged to participate in this performance of rhythm and movement with interdisciplinary artist and facilitator RupLoops (Ruby Singh), whose creativity crosses the boundaries of music, poetry, visual art, photography and film.

Haida House
2:30 – 3 pm
Afrofuturism Poetry and Passion Youth Showcase with Ruby Smith-Diaz

3 – 4 pm
YOUth Speak Panel: The issues of racial and climate justice are at the forefront of international public discourse today. Both represent crises that youth have no choice but to experience and combat as they face the future. This panel discussion featuring local youth activists will be an opportunity to bridge these two critical conversations. Witness local youth speak their truth on matters affecting their lives in the complex world they are inheriting, and in so doing, opening the door for intergenerational and cross-cultural dialogue.

This special performance by Tonye Aganaba is a part of MOA’s full evening program, Decolonizing Voices: A Celebration of Canadian Black HERstory, which strives to shine a light on the contributions of Black Womxn Canadians through academic and artistic performance. A ticket to the Tonye Aganaba performance at 8pm includes admission to the full Decolonizing Voices program, beginning at 6 pm. Witness the powerful words of Nya Lewis, Bertha Clarke and Chantal Gibson with readings and an artist panel—come early and enjoy the full evening!

Tonye’s debut performance at MOA draws from their new album, Something Comfortable—an intentional and devotional endeavour inspired by their battle with Multiple Sclerosis. The album serves as the score to ‘AfroScience’ an ongoing immersive performance and workshop series that fuses live music, dance, visual art/digital media and storytelling to stimulate conversation and action around identity, addiction, healing and expression. Tonye’s shows, workshops and classes are connected and intimate experiences, and evoke a kind of vulnerability that we all hunger for.

Praise for Tonye’s music: “… one of the best R&B recordings ever to come out of Vancouver, spanning decades of soul and funk touchstones, from Chaka Khan and Jody Watley to Brand New Heavies, Jill Scott and others.” ~ Westender

Full program of Decolonizing Voices: A Celebration of Canadian Black HERstory here.

MOA pays tribute to the contributions of Black Womxn Canadians with an evening of academic and artistic performances. The night (free with museum admission) features readings and artist talks from artist, poet and award-winning educator, Chantal Gibson; founder and director of BlackArt Gastown, Nya Lewis; and arts curator and producer Barbara Chirinos. Each of these womxn will explore how we can decolonize institutional prejudice and evaluate how colonialism has woven its way into our every day lives through their own unique perspectives and forms of artistic and intellectual expression.

Program schedule

Great Hall | 6 – 8 pm
Free with museum admission

Musqueam welcome + Opening remarks
Introduction by co-curator Nya Lewis
Readings from Barbara Chirinos
How She Read: So what does it mean to decolonize your mind? Talk + book signing with Chantal Gibson

*Please note: Adelene da Soul Poet was previously announced in the lineup; unfortunately, she will no longer be able to attend due to illness.

(Haida House | 8 – 9:30 pm
Performance by Tonye Aganabe—SOLD OUT)

Bios

Chantal Gibson is a/Historical In(ter)ventionist, an artist, award-winning educator and poet living in Vancouver with ancestral roots in Nova Scotia. Interested in the cultural production and consumption of knowledge, her creative work illuminates the spaces where literary art and visual art meet, to confront colonialism head on. She uses everyday objects to explore nuances of power and unpack hegemonic mechanisms of oppression persistent across readings, writings and representations of Blackness and Otherness in the Canadian cultural imagination.  

As an arts educator, her public talks, community arts projects and workshop activities encourage individual reflection and collaborative exploration of Identity, Otherness, Privilege and Belonging in this de/colonial moment.

Nya Lewis is the founder and director of BlackArt Gastown—an art showcase that presents outdoor and indoor art installations that stand for social change. A writer committed to creating community, her work celebrates the strength and perseverance of Black Canadian culture, history and its diversity. Last year Lewis presented an installation titled “The Feels” that shed light on mental illness within the black community and created a safe community for black youth to heal, process, share and discuss mental and emotional health.

Barbara Chirinos is an independent curator and producer. She is the founder and co-curator for VIFF Celebrates Black History Month, entering its 8th year at the Vancity Theatre. Working closely with artistic director Margo Kane (Full Circle First Nations Performance), Barbara served as the feature film and lead curator of the NFB Indigenous Short Film Program for the 2017 Drum is Calling Festival. Barbara also co-created (with Mexican artist Ari De La Mora) and produced the International Day of the Dead Exhibit and Tour on Granville Island. She has produced several community engaging events including Afro Hair Savoir Fair (celebrating Black hair and in all its glory through film and partnerships), Feast on Film (bringing lovers of food and film together).

In this conversation at MOA, Grace will discuss her ongoing research into the repatriation of museum objects back to their places of origin within the context of her own art practice. Healing the Museum is a body of work that Grace began in 2012, which came out of a need to re-introduce non-rational methodologies, such as shamanism, to re-activate the ‘sacredness’ of art spaces. Grace believes that most modern art institutions are out of sync with their audiences’ everyday experiences and the widespread socio-economical and political changes that have taken place globally in the recent decades, have further eroded the relationship between museums and their audiences.

The hour-long talk will be followed by an informal gathering in the MOA Community Lounge.

In partnership with the UBC African Awareness Initiative Conference 2020: Africa in the Diaspora—The African Experience Around the World. Additional workshops of the Vancouver edition of the 2020 Year of Black Healing will be presented by Grace Ndiritu, psychotherapist Aziz Majid, and artist Guadalupe Martinez in association with OR Gallery from February 3 to 7, 2020.