Curatorial Tour: Raechel Wastesicoot: Kenatentas + World-builders, shapeshifters

Join Associate Curator Erin Szikora for a casual guided tour of Raechel Wastesicoot: Kenatentas and World-builders, shapeshifters, featuring new beadwork by Oshawa-born artist Raechel Wastesicoot and a wide selection of new work by World-builders, shapeshifters artists Alex Jacobs-Blum, Kat Brown Akootchook, Kay Nadjiwon, Natalie King, Nishina Shapwaykeesic-Loft, and Sheri Osden Nault. Everyone is welcome!

If there is anything we can do to support your participation, please reach out to Erin at [email protected].

World-builders, shapeshifters is supported by the Maada’ookii Committee, Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation and the Downie & Wenjack Foundation and Hudson Bay Foundation through Oshki Wuppowane: The Blanket Fund, and the Government of Ontario through the Tourism Relief Fund.

Exhibition Walkthrough with Couzyn van Heuvelen

Join Couzyn van Heuvelen at the RMG to learn about how his personal experiences led him to create the monumental new artworks in CAMP. Let us know you’re coming with an RSVP.

Sharing how Inuit hunting camps are sites for shared learning and joyful community-building, this interactive talk will allow participants to explore the critical role of land-based practices in Inuit self-determination, food sovereignty in the North, and the pleasures of celebrating around food. Couzyn welcomes questions and conversation throughout.

You can read more about Couzyn van Heuvelen: CAMP here.

Seating will be available. If there is anything else we can do to support your participation, please reach out to Hannah at [email protected].

The artist gratefully acknowledges support from the Canada Council for the Arts for this exhibition.

Couzyn van Heuvelen: CAMP is supported by the Ontario Arts Council.

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Oshawa: 100 Years

This year marks one hundred years since Oshawa was incorporated as a city. From humble beginnings with a population of 16,000, today more than 172,000 people call Oshawa home. Through historical photographs from the Thomas Bouckley Collection, this exhibition explores what life was like in Oshawa in 1924.

Oshawa was established as the 25th city in Ontario on March 8th, 1924. A letter written by the Premier of Ontario, G.H. Ferguson, featured on the front page of the Oshawa Daily Telegram. He wrote: “As the home of a great portion of our automotive industry, Oshawa feels a growing and a permanent need in the life of the nation.” Industry in Oshawa was indeed booming. General Motors of Canada encouraged a growth in population from 4,000 to 16,000 over the previous decade. The city celebration was marked with a parade and the year was filled with various events that reflected Oshawa’s new status. In 1924, Mayor W.J. Trick oversaw the dedication of the Cenotaph in Memorial Park in honour of those lost in WWI, and there was the construction of the water tower which was thought at the time to be the largest in the world.

This exhibition looks back on the earliest recorded memories of the Oshawa’s city status. As we look toward the future, we can reflect on how far we have come, the immense progress the city has made, and what kind of city we want to be in the next 100 years.

Raechel Wastesicoot: Kenatentas Opening Reception

Please join us to celebrate the opening of Raechel Wastesicoot: Kenatentas. Let us know you’re coming with an RSVP.

Refreshments will be served. Join us in the exhibition space at 2:15pm for remarks and an exhibition walkthrough with the artist and RMG Associate Curator, Erin Szikora.

Raechel Wastesicoot is a mixed Kanien’kehá:ka beadworker born and raised in Oshawa and currently based in Toronto. In her debut exhibition, Wastesicoot has created twelve beaded artworks in response to paintings and drawings from the RMG’s Permanent Collection. Working with upcycled, vintage, and harvested materials, her pieces are personal reflections on family and community, inspired by the rich colours and abstractions of Ontario’s abstract collective Painters Eleven.

Seating will be available. If there is anything else we can do to support your participation, please reach out to Erin at [email protected].

This exhibition is presented with support from the Government of Ontario through the Tourism Relief Fund.

Raechel Wastesicoot: Kenatentas

Join us in celebrating the opening of Kenatentas on Saturday, January 27 from 2-3:30pm. More details here.

Raechel Wastesicoot is a mixed Kanien’kehá:ka beadworker born and raised in Oshawa and currently based in Toronto. Growing up just minutes from the gallery, the RMG has long served as a personal site of inspiration and respite to Wastesicoot. In her debut exhibition, Kenatentas, she has created twelve beaded artworks in response to paintings and drawings from the RMG’s Permanent Collection by members of Ontario’s abstract collective, Painters Eleven. Presented alongside short poems written by the artist, each work, while formally referencing its historical counterpart, recalls a very specific moment or relationship in Wastesicoot’s life that has challenged or changed her.

Wastesicoot began beading in 2020 as a way of connecting to her Mohawk culture. For thousands of years, the practice of beading has been utilized by Indigenous Peoples to record and share cultural knowledge. Enduring today, beadwork has been taken up en masse by a new generation of young Indigenous artists. As a social activity, beading circles promote community-building and knowledge sharing, carving pathways to wider networks of cultural dialogue. As an individual practice, the slowness is described by many as meditative and healing.

In Kenatentas, Wastesicoot intimately revisits moments of her past, bead by bead honouring, and in some cases rewriting, the stories that have made her who she is today. Using playful materials and colours, she nurtures her younger self and tends to intergenerational trauma deeply rooted in the place that for 22 years she called home. Hung alongside the artwork that inspired her as child, Wastesicoot asserts herself, and by extension, contemporary Indigenous beadwork, within the ongoing story of abstraction in Canada.

Raechel Wastesicoot is a mixed Kanien’kehá:ka beadworker and land-based communications specialist. Her mother’s family is from the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, and her father’s family immigrated to Toronto from Northern Italy in the early 1960s. Her spirit name is Mein-gun Kwe, meaning wolf woman, which was gifted to her by an Ojibway Elder. Following a teaching passed down to her: from the land, for the land, and by the land, her beadwork comprises contemporary pieces featuring upcycled, vintage, and harvested materials. With the land and sustainability at the centre of her approach, the pieces she creates aim to have as minimal an impact on the environment as possible, and heavily feature gifts from the land, including antler, fur, hides, and porcupine quills.

This exhibition is presented with support from the Government of Ontario through the Tourism Relief Fund.

OPG Sunday: Rain Resist

Suitable for ages 3+

Let’s celebrate the spring season through our artworks. We will use oil pastel and watercolour techniques to create rainy day artworks sure to make a splash.

Free admission, no registration required.

This event is generously sponsored by Ontario Power Generation.

OPG Sunday: Family Day

Suitable for ages 3+

Spend time with family and friends at The RMG. This family day, explore the themes of our current exhibitions and create an artwork together based around connection, community and home. Make a pin-on button, and try out our Eye Spy game.

Free admission, no registration required.

This event is generously sponsored by Ontario Power Generation.

OPG Sunday: Blast from the Past

Suitable for ages 3+

The Oshawa Museum is joining us this month! We will be exploring themes of our permanent collection exhibition About Time through looking back on our own past with the Oshawa Museum. Learn about the Victorian Cell Phone, and create artwork based on history, time and technology.

Free admission, no registration required.

This event is generously sponsored by Ontario Power Generation.

Seniors Spring Social Event

Back by popular demand! This free event encourages seniors (age 55+) to spend the afternoon curating their own program. Participants may choose do the exhibition tour then have tea and snacks, do one or both of the workshop activities, do one of the workshops and then go on an exhibition tour, it’s a matter of preference.

Event options include:

  • Tours of the RMG current exhibitions at 1pm and 2pm
  • Two different drop in art making workshops
  • Light refreshments available in our onsite Arthurs Restaurant 1-3pm

In the Lookout (lower level) join guest artist instructor, Jade Wysotski from 1:30pm-2:30pm to create an adorable realistic kitten!

Working with black and white drawing media on toned paper, this piece will have a soft and realistic look. Participants will be provided with simple line art and use mark making techniques to communicate texture and form. This activity is suitable for all drawing abilities!

In the studio, participants are encouraged to make unique cards!  Create stamp printed leaves on a watercolour background. This workshop is supported by the Learning and Engagement team!

Seniors Programming has been made possible thanks to the generous support of Sienna for Seniors Foundation.

Saturday Studio Winter 2024

Saturdays, January 20 to March 2 (no class Feb. 17)

Ages 5-8             10:30am-12pm (this class is full)

Ages 9-12            1-2:30pm

$70 Members/ $80 Non-Members

This 6 week class is filled with art making that inspires creativity and imagination!  Each week will be a new adventure with sculptures, paintings, drawings, printmaking, and more using artist quality materials!

Sign up here!