HAIDA NOW

Co-curator tour with Kwi Jones and Viviane Gosselin

Join us on June 30, 2021, during Indigenous Peoples Month, for another instalment of the monthly virtual tour series at MOV. This next event will give participants a final chance to tour MOV’s landmark feature exhibition, Haida Now, before it closes in July 2021. Led by the exhibition’s co-curators, Kwi Jones and Viviane Gosselin, the tour will give participants unique insight into the collection that is both historical and personal. This virtual tour will provide guests with an overview of the themes and works that are showcased, touch on colonialism’s impacts on Haida, and reveal the resilience of their culture and artforms.

This collaborative exhibition features an unparalleled collection of Haida art both past and present. It boasts a display of more than 450 works by carvers, weavers, photographers, and print makers, collected as early as the 1890s.

“Through this exhibition, the Haida have been presented with the opportunity to share our sophisticated knowledge through our art and culture. Haida Now is a glimpse into the Haida Nation’s artistic and cultural legacy that we continue to write. These are the stories we can use to help build better relationships for the future, and create a greater cross-cultural understanding between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.” – Kwi Jones

“The insight provided by Haida artists and knowledge holders has given new meaning to this impressive collection of Haida art. Remarkable in its quality and scope, the collection has only been partially exhibited a few times over the last 80 years.” – Viviane Gosselin

Guests will also have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the tour during a short Q&A Period.

The tour will be held over Zoom Webinars and pre-registration is required.

Date: Wednesday, June 30, 2021
Time: 5:30pm
Platform: Zoom (Information about how to connect will be sent to participants prior to the event through Eventbrite)
Tickets: $1-$10 Sliding Scale (A service fee and GST is also applied to ticket sales.) - Tickets are capped at 100 participants for this event

**This event is live. A recording of the event will not be shared publicly when the tour is over**

Accessibility: Live Closed Captioning is available and offered for this tour. MOV guides will explain how to access and activate during the tour.

If you are having trouble using the embedded form above, please try to purchase your ticket directly on Eventbrite here.

This month’s Guides

Kwiaahwah Jones is of Nishgaa and Haida descent and aspired to become an artist all her life. From 2007 to 2009, she worked as Curator at the Haida Gwaii Museum with Nathalie Macfarlane.

In 2010, she began work at the Bill Reid Gallery for northwest coast art to curate, and program exhibitions into 2016.In 2016 she left the Bill Reid Gallery to pursue her ambitions to learn to do traditional Haida handpoke tattoos.

Currently she is the guest curator of the exhibition, Haida Now at the Museum of Vancouver, an exhibition feauturing over 450 Haida works collected from as early as the 1880s from Haida Gwaii. Kwiaahwah is also dedicated to her culture and developing her own artistic practice living and working between Vancouver and Haida Gwaii.

Viviane Gosselin is the Director of Collections and Exhibitions at MOV. Her work on historical and environmental literacy seeks to make the museum a more responsive, empathetic, and democratic public space that prompts people to recognize their own capacity to effect positive social change. Viviane has led and co-curated several exhibitions that have been recognized nationally and internationally. She co-curated Haida Now with guest curator Kwiaahwah Jones.

She has authored several articles on participatory museology and intercultural curation and is co-editor of Museums and the Past: Constructing Historical Consciousness (UBC Press). Viviane is currently involved in developing sustainable exhibition design practices with a team of city staff, architects and designers committed to creating a no-waste city. Rather than talking about radical innovation, she prefers to focus on the power of small wins as a mean of furthering the social work of museums.⁠ Viviane is a member of the advisory group of the Coalition of Museums for Climate Justice. She is also a Board Director of ICOM-Canada.