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Wednesday 11am - 5pm Thursday 11am - 8pm Friday 11am - 5pm Saturday 12pm - 5pm Sunday 12pm - 5pm

Dalhousie Art Gallery

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Dalhousie Art Gallery

Dalhousie Art Gallery Gallery hours
Tuesday to Friday: 11 am to 5 pm
Weekends: noon to 5 pm
FREE ADMISSION

The Dalhousie Art Gallery is a public art gallery, an academic support unit within the educational and research context of Dalhousie University, and a cultural resource for the whole community. In our role as a public art gallery, we offer a balanced program of travelling and in-house curated exhibitions of both contemporary and historical artworks, and a related program of artists’ presentations,

lectures, panel discussions, films and videos, and other special events. As an academic support unit, we provide the University with a fine arts component that would otherwise be absent: a location where aesthetic appreciation and criticism may develop and where related cultural issues may be examined. Professional Gallery staff conduct an ongoing program of research, display, and interpretation of artworks, and publication of scholarly catalogues, exhibition brochures and educational materials. We are the custodians of a rich and varied Permanent Collection which we hold in trust for the enjoyment and education of the whole community, actively documenting, preserving, presenting, interpreting and adding to this collection. Our immediate audience is the University community and the alumni, but it extends to people living in, or visiting, Nova Scotia and the Atlantic regions, and through our dissemination and traveling exhibition programs, to wider audiences in Canada and internationally.

05/27/2026

Join us this Thursday at Treaty Space Gallery for a conversation with curator Nahom Assefa and artist, filmmaker, and writer Sylvia D. Hamilton, moderated by Pamela Edmonds.
Presented in conjunction with In Relation: Black Material Life & Memory on Mi’kma’ki, the conversation will reflect on Black cultural memory, African Nova Scotian histories, material culture, archives, and the ways knowledge is carried through objects, images, stories, and relationships.
In Relation is a group exhibition that brings together historical and contemporary works, reference books, and objects connected to African Nova Scotian, Black Canadian, African diasporic, and Ethiopian cultural memory. The discussion will consider works by Edith Clayton, Clara Clayton Gough, Sylvia D. Hamilton, Jan Wade, Kwame Owusu Brobbey, Tyshan Wright, and others, alongside Nahom’s use of Ethiopian objects such as the gabi and mesob.
Together, Nahom, Sylvia, and Pamela will speak about curatorial process, mentorship, Black material life, the significance of presenting the exhibition at Treaty Space Gallery, and the responsibilities of working with community histories.
Thursday, May 28, 2026
6:00 – 7:00 pm
Treaty Space Gallery
1887 Granville Street, Halifax
Please note: the exhibition is on view until Saturday, May 30.
Presented through Dalhousie Art Gallery’s Curatorial Mentorship Program in partnership with Treaty Space Gallery, with support from Canadian Heritage’s Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program.

04/30/2026

Coming soon!

Join us for the opening reception for Ed Pien: Present: Past/Future, on Thursday, 7 May, from 6:00–8:00 pm. The exhibition is an evolving multimedia installation developed through the artist’s long-term collaboration with elders in San Agustín, Cuba. Bringing together video portraits, photography, exchanged personal objects, and sculptural furniture assemblages, the exhibition offers a moving meditation on memory, aging, and presence.

The program begins at 6:30 pm in the Dalhousie Arts Centre Sculpture Court and will include remarks by Dr. Isaac Saney, a special musical performance by violinists Alison Enríquez and Irain Quirós, and a talk and exhibition tour with artist Ed Pien and co-curators Pamela Edmonds and Catherine Sicot. Refreshments provided by La Casita Kitchen.

The exhibition is organized and circulated by Elegoa Cultural Productions and will be on view from May 8–August 16, 2026.

The project is accompanied by a trilingual publication in English, French, and Spanish, produced by the artist, Elegoa Cultural Productions, and Centre SAGAMIE, Montréal, with support host institution AGO - Art Gallery of Ontario, as well as Birch Contemporary , Pierre François Ouellette art contemporain, Montréal , and private donor Carlos Yep. The publication will be available at the gallery.

We look forward to seeing you there!

04/10/2026

The Dalhousie Art Gallery is looking for a Communications and Community Engagement Coordinator to join our team.

Reporting to the Director and Curator and working closely with the Gallery team, the Communications and Community Engagement Coordinator supports communications, marketing, and outreach for exhibitions, public programs, and community engagement initiatives. This position is well suited to an emerging communications professional interested in gaining hands-on experience in a university art gallery environment.

📍 Kjipuktuk (Halifax), NS
🗓️ May 25, 2026 to January 15, 2027
💲 $25.00/hour, 30 hours/week

See full job posting and application information at https://artgallery.dal.ca/ant-1

ℹ️ This position is funded in part by Young Canada Works at Building Careers in Heritage (YCW-BCH). Applicants must be registered in the YCW candidate pool and meet YCW-BCH eligibility criteria. To be eligible, applicants must:

- be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, or have refugee status in Canada
- be legally entitled to work in Canada
- be between 16 and 30 years of age at the start of employment
- be a college or university graduate

03/30/2026

Today, we’re highlighting Leonard Gibson (1926–2008), whose imagery and selected archival materials appear in “Performing Artists and the Stage” in It’s About Time. This section of the exhibition considers performing artists in Canada whose biographies open onto broader histories of dance, performance, and cultural expression.

Born in Athabasca, Alberta, and raised in Vancouver, Gibson was a dancer, choreographer, and teacher whose work moved across stage, television, and community performance, and whose advocacy continues to resonate across generations. A self-taught dancer from childhood, he later trained with Mara McBirney in Vancouver and at the Katherine Dunham School in New York. In addition to tap and ballet, he studied and trained in Afro-Cuban, modern, and flamenco.

A special feature of the exhibition is the inclusion of two pairs of Leonard Gibson’s tap shoes, which register dance as both embodied knowledge and material history. Gibson was inducted into Dance Collection Danse’s Encore! Dance Hall of Fame in 2019.

On view until April 12. Read more about Leonard Gibson at dancingblackcanada.ca.

03/24/2026

The Gallery will be closed on Friday 3 April for Good Friday. We will be open our regular weekend hours from noon to 5 PM during the Easter weekend. Admission is free!

03/20/2026

March 21 marks the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Our current exhibition, It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900–1970 and Now, curated by Seika Boye, brings forward histories of Black movement and performance that have long been overlooked, under-documented, or excluded from dominant cultural narratives.

Ola Sk**ks (1926–2018), featured in the exhibition, was a pioneering Canadian dancer, choreographer, and educator whose work bridged modern dance and African diasporic movement. Working across Toronto and beyond from the 1950s onward, she developed a practice grounded in cultural memory and self-directed learning, teaching dance alongside deportment, fashion, and modelling, with a deep commitment to education and community.

By centring artists like Sk**ks, the exhibition insists on recognition, continuity, and the enduring cultural force of Black life in Canada. This work continues. And so does the responsibility to make it visible.

Ola Sk**ks, 1970s; Ola Sk**ks poster 1977, Dance Collection Danse Poster Collection

03/19/2026

Where the curtain falls, something deeper begins ✨

We’re thrilled to present Preston Pavlis’s "when the jig is up, when the act is finished, when the curtain descends" in It’s About Time. Originally commissioned for this nationally touring show curated by Seika Boye for the Mitchell Art Gallery in Edmonton, Alberta, the work was first shown there in 2020, when Pavlis was living in Alberta, and now returns in Halifax in a new context, where the artist is now based, bringing renewed resonance.

Monumental in scale yet quietly intimate, the work draws us into a backstage moment suspended between performance and solitude. A dancer sits at her vanity, poised in a space of reflection, vulnerability, and resolve. Rather than centering spectacle, Pavlis turns toward the inner life of the performer and the private weight of artistic devotion. Hand-stitched red curtains and pressed flowers lend the work a tender theatricality, while the dancer’s mirrored gaze carries longing, discipline, and self-possession.

What emerges is a moving meditation on what remains when the performance pauses: doubt, desire, ritual, and the enduring force of choosing oneself.

Collection of Paul and Mary Dailey Desmarais III
Courtesy Bradley Ertaskiran
Photo: Steve Farmer

03/13/2026

What if a quilt could move like a dance?

In "this earth is our dancefloor and this dancefloor is our world" (2025) African Nova Scotian quiltmaker Anja Clyke uses bold, interlocking circular forms that feel almost choreographed across the surface of the textile.

The design was developed in collaboration with curator Seika Boye, whose research considers the central role of the circle in many religious and social dances across continental Africa and throughout the diaspora. In a dance circle, everyone participates in a shared space, where each person can see and be seen.

At the centre of the quilt, a luminous yellow ring symbolizes the enduring energy of the human circle. It gestures toward long histories of movement and gathering, from the ring shout to the breakdance cypher, across land, water, and generations.

Clyke’s composition creates a striking visual rhythm: arcs looping, paths intersecting, and colours pulsing across a dark ground. The quilt reads almost like choreography, suggesting motion, connection, and the ways communities come together over time.

Rooted in traditions where quilts function as both artwork and cultural archive, Clyke’s practice reflects how knowledge, memory, and movement are carried forward through materials we live with every day.

🧵 Anja Clyke, this earth is our dancefloor and this dancefloor is our world, 2025
Machine- and hand-stitched quilt
36 × 36 inches
Courtesy of the Artist
📍 On view in It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900 -1970 and Now at the Dalhousie Art Gallery

Photo credit: Steve Farmer

03/02/2026

Performance & Panel | This Thursday

A reminder that on March 5, we gather in the gallery for a live activation and panel discussion presented as part of "It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900–1970 and Now", curated by Dr. Seika Boye.

The evening begins with a live performance by kay macdonald within their immersive installation "in this room – at the beginning of the night/at the end of the world" a space that evokes backstage, altar, and dance floor. Following the activation, kay will moderate a conversation with I’thandi Munro and Chris Cochrane (Elle Noir) reflecting on Black performance as lineage and living practice in Mi’kma’ki.

We hope you’ll join us for this timely gathering of movement, memory, and community.

🗓 Thursday, March 5
⏰ 6:00–7:30 pm
📍 Dalhousie Art Gallery

📷 Photo by Cody Turner

02/26/2026

Performance & Panel Discussion | Thursday, March 5, 2026
6:00–7:30 pm

Join us for an evening of performance and conversation presented as part of our current exhibition It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900–1970 and Now, curated by Dr. Seika Boye.

Halifax/Kjipuktuk-based artists kay macdonald, I’thandi Munro, and Chris Cochrane (Elle Noir) will gather for a panel discussion reflecting on Black performance as lineage and living practice in Mi’kma’ki, exploring how movement carries memory, how artists prepare to be seen, and how performance becomes a site of community, survival, and transformation.

The evening begins with a live activation by macdonald within their immersive installation "in this room – at the beginning of the night/at the end of the world", a space that evokes backstage, altar, and dance floor, where “getting ready” becomes ritual, resistance, and celebration. Following the performance, macdonald will moderate the conversation.

Rooted in activism, dance, drag, and interdisciplinary practice, this timely gathering invites audiences to consider what it means to gather, to move, and to carry Black performance forward.

🗓 Thursday, March 5, 2026
⏰ 6:00–7:30 pm
📍 Dalhousie Art Gallery

02/13/2026

African Heritage Month Spotlight ✨

This month we honour Joey Hollingsworth (b. 1936), a pioneering Canadian tap dancer, singer, and conga player whose career spans more than six decades.

Trained in the 1950s by Nova Scotia’s legendary Portia White, who taught him breath control so he could sing after tapping, Hollingsworth went on to perform on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1962 and became a regular on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, expanding the presence of Black artists on North American television.

Throughout the 1960s he performed at civil rights benefit concerts and shared stages with artists such as Oscar Peterson and Harry Belafonte, using his artistry in service of both performance and social change.

His story is part of a larger and often under-documented history of Black dance in Canada. Learn more in It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900–1970 and Now, curated by Dr. Seika Boye, and through the Dancing Black Canada archive: dancingblackcanada.ca

On view until April 12. 🖤

Address

6101 University Avenue
Halifax, NS
B3H1W8

Opening Hours

Wednesday	11am - 5pm
Thursday	11am - 8pm
Friday	11am - 5pm
Saturday	12pm - 5pm
Sunday	12pm - 5pm

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+19024942403

Website

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