THE OTTAWA ART GALLERY / LA GALERIE D'ART D'OTTAWA

The 2024 period has been a time of both challenge and achievement for the Ottawa Art Gallery (OAG) marked by financial pressures and exciting strides in programming institutional partnerships and community-focused work. OAG reaffirmed its role as a centre for cultural leadership innovation and care while navigating the realities of staff transitions site safety and sustainability. Achievements and Innovations in Programming OAG expanded its national footprint through touring exhibitions in Nunavut Winnipeg and across Ontario. This outward engagement paralleled internal deepening of consultative curatorial practices. Notably our partnership with the National Gallery of Canada based on shared Indigenous leadership and decolonial values led to an unprecedented agreement launching with Jeff Thomas: Stories My Father Couldn’t Tell Me to be followed by an Indigenous curatorial mentorship. BIPOC and equity-based mentorship remained central to our work. The inaugural BIPOC curatorial mentorship with OBAK which has now been expanded nationally through a partnership with the National Gallery of Canada and our long-standing collaboration with the University of Ottawa's Visual Arts Department exemplify this. Exhibitions such as For Those Who Chose the Sea by Stanley Wany and Dark Ice by Leslie Reid and Robert Kautuk highlighted Black and Inuit perspectives blending contemporary themes with social and environmental justice. Through historical reframing such as in Ground Glass: Reframing William James Topley we examined race gender and class in the Canadian visual canon. This exhibition along with the Firestone Collection's themed shows (including a Firestone Reverb installation by Rachel Kalpana James) underscores our commitment to pluralistic storytelling. Recent acquisition highlights include works by Stanley Wany Jobena Petonoquot and Caroline Monnet and major estate gifts from Bill Staubi and Jeff Thomas.