Experience the magic of outdoor story time at the art gallery! Through books, songs, games, and creative activities, storytellers from Oshawa Public Libraries will spark your imagination in The Backyard at the RMG! This event is free and no registration is required.
Offered alongside the exhibition Contemporary Kids, this yearâs Backyard Story Time themes are inspired by the artists in that exhibition. Celebrating the unique perspectives and ingenuity of children, Contemporary Kids is an exhibition featuring a collection of collaborative artwork made by artists and kids and interactive installations that allow parents and children to explore and play together.
Backyard Story Time at the RMG is hosted by, and offered in partnership with, Oshawa Public Libraries.
Contemporary Kids has been financially assisted by the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, a program of the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport, administered by the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund Corporation.
Experience the magic of outdoor story time at the art gallery! Through books, songs, games, and creative activities, storytellers from Oshawa Public Libraries will spark your imagination in The Backyard at the RMG! This event is free and no registration is required. Offered alongside the exhibition Contemporary Kids, this yearâs Backyard Story Time themes are inspired […]
Come join us for tea on Mother’s Day at The RMG. Farm + Wild will be hosting seatings for the whole weekend. Daniel and his team will be serving the best Durham has to offer, so bring all the moms for delicious prix fixe. Afterward, please tour our exhibitions and visit to the RMG Shop to make your day complete for a full experience at our gallery.
This month, weâre celebrating a brand new exhibition at the RMG! Please join us on the lower level in Gallery A at 7:15PM for opening remarks with Durham College students and staff to recognize the opening of Emerging Visions. Emerging Visions is an annual exhibition of thesis projects by the third-year Fine Arts class at Durham College.
Order of Events
7pm â Doors Open, Art Activity begins in Studio
7:15pm – DRIFF Screening in the Lookout
7:15-7:45 â Opening Remarks and Award Ceremony
8pm – Performance by BoluSings
8:15pm – DRIFF Screening in the Lookout
8:45pm – Performance by Simmone Mariah
Bolu Adefemi or âBoluSingsâ is a 16 year old girl from Oshawa, Ontario. Bolu uses songwriting to explore the issues that touch her world. Boluâs mum likes to tell people “She’s been singing ever since she was in the wombâ; and Bolu agrees she has always loved to sing. Bolu Adefemi has written, produced, and released three songs on important issues: including the âCorona-virus”, The importance of self care, and the âBlack Lives Matter Movementâ. Bolu has been featured in the following media: CityTV, CP24 News, AM960, 680 News, Clarington This Week, Orono Times, Durham.com, The RoundTable Talk show in Long Beach, California Toronto Caribbean Virtual Festival and Ticker TV, Australia etc. Bolu loves to follow her passion, while sharing messages that she finds crucial.
Simmone Mariah is a Toronto-born and-raised singer/songwriter who has been captivating audiences with her powerful voice and emotive lyrics. Raised in church Simmone discovered her love for music at a young age and has been honing her craft ever since. Simmone’s music is both fresh and timeless exploring love, heartbreak and self-discovery. In 2018 Simmone released her debut single; Miles Between which showcased her signature sound and has set the tone for her future success. Since then she has continued to write and record music that speaks to the heart of her listeners. As she continues to pursue her passion for music, Simmone Mariah is poised to make a lasting impact on the North American music scene and beyond.
DRIFF Screening
Frida in the Sky | Directed by Dani Sadun | 6:14 minutes
Frida, an 8-year-old engineering prodigy, builds an airplane behind her motherâs back to follow in her Abuelaâs legacy.
In the studio, create your very own D.I.Y. planter pot stake using polymer clay! No art experience required.
In 1987, architect Arthur Erikson was commissioned to design an addition to the RMGâs existing 1969 building. Eriksonâs interest in the play of light and shadow is evident in the RMGâs large skylight and upper level curved windows. Join us at 2PM for a tour of the RMG building.
Letâs celebrate Arthur Eriksonâs love of light and shadow! From 10:30AM to 12:30PM, join us for a hands-on art making activity encourage participants to use their imagination to create beautiful lighted sculptures.
Doors Open Oshawa is a free, annual event that provides an opportunity to explore Oshawa’s diverse heritage and cultural sites. Spend a day discovering local history first-hand and celebrating our communityâs heritage.
Pegi Nicol MacLeod (born Margaret Kathleen Nichol, 1904-1949) was inspired by everyday scenes around her. Growing up in Ottawa, MacLeod studied art at the Ottawa Art School, and later at the Ăcole des beaux-arts in Montreal. While her subjects were variedâ children, bustling crowds, views from her windowâher style was undeniably hers. Art historian Laura Brandon described MacLeodâs unique vision: âMacLeodâs paintings are like jazz. Whatever the subject, her colours and lines weave a complex and energetic or discordant harmony that is unforgettably hers.â This exhibition pulls together works in the RMGâs permanent collection that capture MacLeodâs exuberant and spontaneous energy that she applied to her life and art.Â
We are pleased to present the annual Durham College Thesis Exhibition! Like all visionary explorers, the students in Durham Collegeâs Fine Arts Advanced program are involved in a continual process of identifying and studying meaningful subjects that pertain to their own evolving bodies of work. They first research then develop strategies unique to their practice through experimentation, all the while learning to define and focus their personal interests. This exhibition includes a wide range of subjects, interests, and mediums.
Celebrate EMERGING VISIONS with the staff and students of Durham College! The opening reception will be hosted during RMG Friday on May 3, 2024. Then, stop by the gallery at 1pm on May 15th for an artist-led tour of the exhibition. This is your chance to learn more about specific projects and hear about the journey from conception to fabrication to presentation.
This month, weâre celebrating a brand new exhibition at the RMG! Please join us on the lower level in Gallery A at 7:15PM for opening remarks with Durham College students and staff to recognize the opening of Emerging Visions. Emerging Visions is an annual exhibition of thesis projects by the third-year Fine Arts class at […]
Join us at 1pm on May 15th for an artist-led tour of Emerging Visions, an exhibition that presents thesis projects by the third-year graduating students of the Fine Arts Advanced program at Durham College. We welcome staff and students from Durham College and any members of the public who want to learn more about specific […]
This exhibition is presented with support from the RBC Foundation.
Contemporary Kids is an exhibition bringing together contemporary artists who make art with and for children. Within the framework of contemporary art, the interests and cultural production of children are often excluded. The artists in this exhibition embrace the unique perspectives that children can bring to art and see play as a crucial entry into artistic explorations.
Artist duo Leisure (Meredith Carruthers and Susannah Wesley) have created an immersive installation for the exhibition that allows children to play, reflect, and rest. Exploring art and movement with their bodies, kids are encouraged to work alone or with others to weave, stretch, and hoist a web of ropes and soft sculptures.
Alongside these interactive artworks, Amy Wong presents a body of work she produced with her son Rudi. Illustrating the creative negotiations that constitute intergenerational relationships, this work also reveals the vital connection between Wongâs studio practice as an artist and childcare strategies as a parent. Hannah Jickling and Reed H. Reed also present a survey of artwork that was created with children. Developing experimental curriculum for classroom settings, the artists have been thinking alongside kid collaborators for several years. Adopting a critical lens and youthful perspective, they have created an expansive collection of publications, prints, and sculptures inspired by their collaborative projects.
Altogether, the work in Contemporary Kids is a celebration of the unique ways children see and engage with their environment. The exhibition is a playground for all ages, serving as a reminder to find joy and fun in each otherâs company and seek creative problem solving in an ever-changing world.
About the Artists:
Hannah Jickling + Reed H. Reed have been collaborating since 2006. Their projects take shape as public installations, social situations and events that circulate as photographs, videos, printed-matter and artistsâ multiples. They have facilitated many collaborative research projects with children, most notably Big Rock Candy Mountain (2015âongoing). In 2017 they published Multiple Elementary with YYZBOOKS, part exhibition catalogue, artistsâ book, and candy store advertisement. Multiple Elementary explores the elementary school classroom as a site for the invention and reception of contemporary art practices.
Jickling and Reed are recipients of numerous awards including the Ian Wallace Award for Teaching Excellence (2016, Emily Carr University), the Mayorâs Arts Award for Public Art (2017, City of Vancouver), the Sobey Art Award Longlist (2018, National Gallery of Canada and the Sobey Art Foundation), the 2018 VIVA Award (Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts). Together, they have presented work at: Western Front (Vancouver), Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver), Mitchell Gallery (Edmonton), Arts League (Houston), the MalmĂś Art Academy (MalmĂś, SE), Dunlop Art Gallery (Regina), Studio XX (Montreal), Carleton University Art Gallery (Ottawa), Gallery TPW (Toronto), Kelowna Art Gallery, Theatre of Research (Hamburg), Westfälischer Kunstverein, (MĂźnster, DE), the Tate Liverpool (UK) and the Ruskin School of Art (Oxford, UK).
Jickling and Reed are currently based between xʡmÉθkʡÉyĚÉm (Musqueam), SkwxwĂş7mesh (Squamish), sÉlilwÉtaÉŹ/selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and TrâondĂŤk HwĂŤchâin territories â working to locate their practice between urban/southern and rural/northern contexts. They teach part-time at the Yukon School of Visual Arts.
Leisure is a research-based collaborative art practice between Montreal-based artists Meredith Carruthers (1975) and Susannah Wesley (1976). Recent projects on friendship, collaboration, material exploration and intergenerational exchange include: Having Ideas by Handling Materials (Oakville Galleries, 2023), The Ceremony (Foreman Art Gallery of Bishopâs University, 2021), Conversation with magic forms (most recently exhibited at CAG Vancouver, 2020), the solo retrospective How one becomes what one is (MusĂŠe dâart de Joliette, 2018), Panning for gold/Walking you through it (MusĂŠe dâart contemporain de MontrĂŠal, 2017) and DualitĂŠ/DualitĂŠ (Artexte, Montreal, 2015). Upcoming exhibitions include their curation and participation in the 5th Virginia McClure Ceramic Biennale (2024, McClure Gallery), a group exhibition at the Tartu Art Museum, Estonia (2024), and a solo exhibition at Optica (2025). Wesley and Carruthers are currently working on a precedent setting collaborative PhD candidacy in Research-Creation within Concordia University’s Individualized Program.
Amy Wing-Hann Wong (b. 1981, Toronto, she/they) is an Angry Asian Feminist disguised as an oil painter. Her practice ranges from painting-based installation to collaborative projects that explore the politics of making noise and thinking through together. Often inverting private and public spaces, Wong asserts ways in which a leakiness and messiness of things can aspire towards feminist and decolonial ways of being. Their practice oscillates between varying systems of representation to evoke non-linear, personal narratives. They often work with what they consider a bad idea or a clichĂŠ to redefine them on their terms. Wong completed her BFA at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, MFA at York University in Toronto, Ontario and post-graduate studies at De Ateliers in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Rudi Sun-Yu Wong (b. 2017, Toronto, he/him) is in grade 1 at Iroquois Junior Public School. He knows a lot about bugs, gemstones, outer space, and poop jokes. He loves arts and crafts, swimming, and dancing. Wong lives with his mom, aunt and grandparents in Scarborough and with his dad downtown. He has two dogs and an aquarium of fish and shrimp and farts and plants and rocks and also water. Past collaborations between Amy and Rudi include Room for Taking Care at OCADU Graduate Gallery, Toronto ON; Exchange Piece at the Design TO Festival; A Glitter of Seas at Dreamsong, Minneapolis, MN.
Installation of Contemporary Kids at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2024. Photo by Toni Hafkenscheild.
To celebrate the opening of our new exhibition Contemporary Kids, the RMG is hosting a party for families! Join us for a free day full of fun and engaging activities! 10:30-11:30am: Backyard Story Time at the RMG Join us in The Backyard for a pride-themed Story Time with librarians from the Oshawa Public Library, including […]
Join curator, Hannah Keating for a guided tour of Contemporary Kids, which includes work by Shaya Ishaq, Hannah Jickling + Reed H. Reed, Leisure (Meredith Carruthers and Susannah Wesley), and Amy Wong. Thursday Curatorial Tours are free and open to everyone. They provide deeper insight into the themes, context, and content of our exhibitions. Seating […]
Experience the magic of outdoor story time at the art gallery! Through books, songs, games, and creative activities, storytellers from Oshawa Public Libraries will spark your imagination in The Backyard at the RMG! This event is free and no registration is required. Offered alongside the exhibition Contemporary Kids, this yearâs Backyard Story Time themes are inspired […]
Experience the magic of outdoor story time at the art gallery! Through books, songs, games, and creative activities, storytellers from Oshawa Public Libraries will spark your imagination in The Backyard at the RMG! This event is free and no registration is required. Offered alongside the exhibition Contemporary Kids, this yearâs Backyard Story Time themes are inspired […]
This exhibition has been financially assisted by the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, a program of the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport, administered by the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund Corporation.
Exhibition support also provided by Companies Who Care and Canada Mats.
To celebrate the opening of our new exhibition Contemporary Kids, the RMG is hosting a party for families! Join us for a free day full of fun and engaging activities!
10:30-11:30am: Backyard Story Time at the RMG
Join us in The Backyard for a pride-themed Story Time with librarians from the Oshawa Public Library, including books, songs, and games.
11:30am-12:00pm
Join us in the gallery for welcoming remarks with the artists of Contemporary Kids.
12:00pm-2:00pm: Get Creative!
Explore the gallery and family activities at your own pace:
Help us make a HUGE sidewalk chalk masterpiece!
Create your own art with RMG educators!
Get your face painted!
Pack a picnic lunch to enjoy in our shady backyard!
2:00-3:00pm: Singalong with Andrew Queen and the Campfire Crew
In the galleries all day longâŚ
Celebrating the unique perspectives and ingenuity of children, Contemporary Kids is an exhibition featuring a collection of collaborative artwork made by artists and kids and interactive installations that allow parents and children to explore and play together. Some of the artists will be onsite to answer your questions and play along! Donât forget to check out the whimsical exhibition The Big Hat, featuring new sculpture and video work by local artist Tony Romano. This storytelling installation is a feast for the senses and a perfect backdrop for inspiring creativity and family fun.
If you have any questions about this event, please contact Hannah Keating at [email protected].
This event is organized in partnership with Oshawa Public Libraries. This exhibition has been financially assisted by the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, a program of the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport, administered by the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund Corporation.
Join curator, Hannah Keating for a guided tour of Contemporary Kids, which includes work by Shaya Ishaq, Hannah Jickling + Reed H. Reed, Leisure (Meredith Carruthers and Susannah Wesley), and Amy Wong.
Thursday Curatorial Tours are free and open to everyone. They provide deeper insight into the themes, context, and content of our exhibitions. Seating options are available. For more information about access and our facilities, please visit this page or contact Hannah Keating at [email protected] with any specific requests.
No advance registration required.
This exhibition has been financially assisted by the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, a program of the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport, administered by the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund Corporation.
