Habit Coffee | Pandora Ave
Juliana Sech
Title: Anthesis
Dates: May 16th - June 30th 2025
Anthesis is a visual narrative of pause in ever-changing times, based on collected observational ex(in)ternal studies since January 2025. A multimedia installation, consisting of experimental analogue & digital methods of photography, found material, and written word into conceptual layered compositions.
Intrepid Theatre
Drag is Art
Dates: May 29 - June 1
Drag is Art is a four-day celebration of the art form of drag and the artists who bring these dazzling performances to life. Featuring four nights of shows from local and touring artists, including: ColourVision, featuring an all POC cast; Mouthfull, a series of drag/theatre experiments from Vivian Vanderpuss and Ket Bush; Drama Club, a campy and glamorous musical theatre extravaganza; and Diva Cabaret, where local business leaders and change makers get in wigs and heels to hit the stage in drag for the first time at this special fundraiser. Plus free daytime events!
University of Victoria
Everything is special: Queer and Trans+ Artists’ Books, Zines, and Multiples from the University of Victoria Libraries Special Collections & Legacy Art Galleries
June 1- August 16, 2025
What’s special about Queer and Trans+ artists’ books, zines, and multiples? Everything. From one-of-a-kind limited editions to rare and unique items, the University of Victoria Libraries Special Collections and Legacy Art Galleries is not only home to the world’s largest collection of Transgender archival materials, but a range of printed matter, art, and ephemera representing Queer and Trans+ folks from a diversity of creators and communities. Drop by the Legacy Maltwood Gallery in the lower level of the Mearns Centre for Learning-McPherson Library at the University of Victoria to view this very special exhibition, curated by Heather Dean, Associate Director of Special Collections; Michael Radmacher, Transgender Archives Metadata Librarian; Caroline Riedel, Acting Director, Legacy Art Galleries; Christine Walde, Fine Arts Librarian; and Lara Wilson, University Archivist and Director, Special Collections.
Admission is free and all are welcome to view the exhibit during the Libraries’ regular operating hours.
COMMUNITY COLLABORATIVE MURAL
Monday June 2nd
Workshop: 3 - 5PM
Drop-In and Paint with the Aunty Collective, an Indigenous hub of
gender-diverse artists.
LOVE LETTERS TO QUEER ICONS
Monday June 2nd
Workshop: 3 - 5PM
Facilitated by Jonathan Brower
Ever wanted to write a letter to a queer icon?
Past or present; someone you’ve met,
or someone you’ve always wished you could meet ...
we all have queer icons
who have helped us come into our own.
Now is your chance to say Thank You!
This is a free workshop, with materials and space
sponsored by The Regional Assembly of Text,
organized by the Victoria Arts Council.
_____
Jonathan Brower, MA (Social Justice and Equity Studies) is a queer theatre artist, writer, producer, and activist. He is dedicated to amplifying queer voices through written word and performance. Jonathan has extensive experience facilitating programs that empower individuals to share their authentic stories, including leading Calgary’s queer theatre company (Third Street Theatre) for six seasons, creating and producing contemporary Canadian theatre across Canada, mentoring LGBTQIA+ youth playwrights, and running arts education programs (The Belfry Theatre, Alberta Theatre Projects). Jonathan has worked with local and regional arts organizations in creative leadership, and toured his own plays in Canada (oblivion, That Power) and internationally (Good Hands). His arts advocacy work has been featured in theatre journals, queer faith anthologies, on the CBC, and even in the Canadian Senate. His artistic vision is founded on the belief that through the power of arts-based modalities (narrative inquiry, collective theatre creation, ritual storytelling) we can witness ourselves, restory our lives, and heal our worlds one word at a time.
The Regional Assembly of Text
560 Johnson St #116
The Fifty Fifty Arts Collective
Featuring: && [Dillon Lew'chuk and Kegan McFadden], with Amogha, Monster Boy, Şansal Güngör Gümüşpala, Everett Wong, Judy Woo
5 - 28 June
Opening reception + Poetry Reading: Thursday 5 June, 6 - 9PM
Across drawing, printmaking, installation, textile / soft sculpture, and photography, this exhibition offers divergent approaches to queerness, self-reflection, and the political implications of representation.
Fifty Fifty Arts Collective
2516 Douglas Street
Thursdays - Saturdays, 12-5
Victoria Arts Council
Another Life, chapter 6: here is a noun
artistbooks and printed matter by queer artists
curated by Kegan McFadden
5 - 30 June
The VAC is partnering with local galleries and cultural organizations to organize exhibitions, projects, readings, and screenings reflecting the breadth of queer art taking shape here as part of the inaugural Queer Island Festival of the Arts.
Our Project Space will act as the Festival's office for the month of June, as well as the home for the concluding chapter of Another Life: here is a noun to foreground queer artists working in print, and/or, inhabiting the bookform.
Victoria arts Council | Project Space
670 Fort Street
Thursday to Sunday | 12-5
Arc.hive Artist-Run Centre
Journey: then & now
Margo Farr
June 7-22
Opening June 6th 7-9 pm
“At this turning point in my life I'm reflecting upon my values and identity as an artist. This exhibition is a review of my art journey through the years. Much of my art is created in response to environmental and political issues as I explore aspects of human vulnerabilities while drawing inspiration from nature and its potential to heal.”
Carr House National Historic Site
Dale Roberts
1 - 30 June
“In the recent series of felted works ‘Dames, Divas & Icons’ I have explored the visual notion of Transformation. In particular, a study of males (mainly) who transformed visually into a female persona. In working with needle felted wool I have come to approach the surface much like a painting, blending and layering various wool tones to achieve the feeling tones I imagine of a personality. This exploration has been ongoing for over 14 years.” - Dale Roberts
Dale Roberts began using wool at an early age, as a young boy in Point Leamington, Newfoundland. Learning how to crochet slippers started him off on a career in the fiber arts, earning a Bachelor of Fine Art (1992) on a scholarship from Grenfell College in Newfoundland and a Master of Fine Art (1995) from Purchase College at StateUniversity of New York. It was here that exposure to his first Pride Parade started his own transformational journey. Work with a fellow Newfie led to installations in New York galleries, where he contrasted marble sculptures that portrayed soft curving lines with hanging knotted fishing nets held in taught tension. The interplay of hard and soft is a theme that can be traced throughout his career and was on display here, both via the media and the final image. Over 800,000 pokes of a barbed steel needle went into soft wool fibres to create each matted image. These soft felted images soften the tough mental strength of each icon.
Carr House
207 Government Street
Hours: Tuesday and Sunday, 10AM-5PM
Madrona Gallery in partnership with Victoria Arts Council
ZIGGURATS, watercolours by
Michael Morris
June 5 - 19th
Saturday 7 June, 12:00-2:-00
Reception and tour with John Luna
Madrona Gallery, in partnership with Victoria Arts Council, presents a unique showcase of watercolours by the late Michael Morris in conjunction with the inaugural Queer Island Festival of the Arts from June 5 - 19th.
Morris painted these watercolours in India during the 1990s while in-transit on his return to Canada where they were presented during an exhibit at Paul Petro Contemporary Art (Toronto) though have not been exhibited since.
An ancient architectural building motif comprising rectangular blocks of stairs that infer a closeness to the heavens, ziggurat designs have been adopted by queer artists from General Idea to Keith Haring beginning the mid-Twentieth Century.
This series of unique watercolours has been made available courtesy of the Michael Morris Estate.
Please join us Saturday, June 7th at 12pm for a reception and tour by artist and historian John Luna.
MICHAEL MORRIS (1942 - 2022) was a multimedia artist and curator based in Victoria. With an early focus on abstract painting and printmaking, Morris’s collaborative practice also spanned film, photography, video, installation, and performance. He co-founded Image Bank (now the Morris/Trasov Archive), an artists’ network for correspondence art, exchange, and collaborative events; and was a co-founder and co-director of Western Front.
Madrona Gallery
606 View Street
10:30-5:30 daily
Planet Earth Poetry
Tawahum Bige, Tracy Wai de Boer
hosted by Melanie Siebert
Friday 6 June
Tawahum Bige is a Łutselk'e Dene, Plains Cree poet who has performed at countless spoken word festivals and had poems featured in numerous publications. Their debut poetry collection, Cut to Fortress, was published by Nightwood Editions in 2022. They reside on unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territory (Vancouver, BC).
Tracy Wai de Boer is an award-winning writer and artist whose written and visual work has been featured internationally. She is the author of the chapbook, maybe, basically (Anstruther Press, 2020) and coauthor of Impact: Women Writing After Concussion (University of Alberta Press, 2021). Nostos is her debut poetry collection.
Melanie Siebert is the author of two poetry collections: Signal Infinities and Deepwater Vee, which was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award. Her nonfiction book Heads Up: Changing Minds on Mental Health won the Lane Anderson Award for best science writing for young readers in Canada.
Russell Books
Friday 6th of June, 7:30PM
747 Fort Street
Mark Loria Gallery in partnership with Victoria Film Festival and Victoria Arts Council
Nanekawâsis, a film by Conor McNally
Saturday 7 June, 2:30PM
Q+A to follow with George Littlechild
The work of Two-Spirit, nêhiyaw (Cree) artist George Littlechild took the reality of residential schools head-on decades before it would enter the collective Canadian conscience. A Sixties Scoop survivor, Littlechild uses his “whimsical,” improvised technique to unlock colourful exuberance and long-held trauma. Conor McNally, a Métis filmmaker, honours his journey. Littlechild was given his great grandfather’s name, nanekawâsis, at a Powwow in 2001. Both Littlechild and the eponymously named film embody its meaning: “swift child.” As we pay witness to a childhood shuffled between foster homes and Littlechild’s emergence as a fleet-fingered artist, the documentary makes fluid connections between past and present. Archival footage blends with warmly tinted 16mm interviews of 65-year-old Littlechild, still evolving in his practice, still passing on his deeply felt knowledge of his ancestry and “Rainbow” spirit. Whereas his partner, John Powell, uses art to govern his freewheeling tendencies, Littlechild harnesses paint to break free of his circumscribed daily life, healing himself and his audience through enlightened transcendence. nanekawâsis begins and ends with a sky full of colour, beautifully eliding time, revealing how light and dark, expectancy and reflection are all indispensable parts of life’s circle.
The Vic Theatre
808 Douglas Street
Fernwood Community & Arts Assoc. | Store Front Studio
James Letkeman
RETURN TO CREAMY GALAXIE
June 9th - July 2nd 2025
The CREAMY GALAXIE series has checked-in to The Little Fernwood Gallery once again, following its initial stay in 2019. The paintings in this series follow a 1965 Ford Galaxie 500 and two individuals as they have a brief encounter at a motel. Their fate may be in the cards, however, their story is left up for interpretation by viewers; with limited visual cues depicted within each painting, you are invited to interpret the succession of events in order to complete the narrative.
We hope you enjoy your stay.
Presented in conjunction with RETURN TO CREAMY GALAXIE will be a reading the play NAKED MAN DANCING by playwright Bruce Chambers, performed in Paul Phillips Hall:
Saturday, June 21 at 2:00 pm.
Fernwood Community & Arts Assoc.
1923 Fernwood Road
Ministry of Casual Living
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Ivy McWilliams’ and Yves Argue
June 12 - July 19 2025
"Our exhibition explores our experiences of queer relationships and social identities that have pushed us outside of the defaulted heteronormative lifestyle. Queer people are subjugated under
heterosexual norms. These norms are so pervasive they lead to internalized regulation, permanently affecting how queer people are able to perceive themselves in relation to the rest of the world. This experience can be full of isolation and torment. These emotions are universally relevant, but because queer people are seen as a perversion of social norms, these emotions arise frequently and with great severity as queer people are isolated in their experiences not only by others, but also themselves. We are exploring those ideas through depictions of the human body and the animal. This morphology allows us to connect queer experiences to the instinctual social patterns of animal life. Our work mirrors the constant swinging pendulum in nature between joy and pain, between safety and danger. We seek to have the viewer relate to the animal as subject;
that is, to feel animalized. An artist's use of animals in work is often to humanize the animal, but within this exhibition we seek to animalize the human."
Ministry of Casual Living
750 Fairfield Road
Hours: Thursdays: 5-8PM
Saturdays: 1-4PM
Fernwood Community & Arts Assoc. | Paul Phillips Hall
Bruce Chambers
NAKED MAN DANCING, a reading
June 21, 2PM
Today, young men are receiving confusing messages: boys are slackers, men are violent, express your true self, don’t stick out, be strong, show vulnerability. It’s no wonder young men are struggling with what it means to be a man. The boundaries of masculinity keep changing. Sexual orientation and gender now exist on a spectrum. Internet influencers are shouting for a return to “traditional manhood”.
Audiences of all genders need to see an alternate narrative. They need to see characters thoughtfully navigating the complexities of masculinity and coming to their own decisions about gender identity and sexual expression. NAKED MAN DANCING provides a narrative that moves in this direction, while entertaining, engaging and
touching hearts.
This reading is an excerpt of the full-length play NAKED MAN DANCING, which is currently being considered for performance at Intrepid Theatre’s OUTstages Festival in 2026. As a reading, it doesn’t involve nudity.
Presented in conjunction with James Letkeman's solo exhibition, RETURN TO CREAMY GALAXIE at the FCA's Store Front Studio.
Fernwood Community & Arts Assoc.
Paul Phillips Hall
1923 Fernwood Road
Hands On Collective
DATE NIGHT AT THE WHEEL
June 27th from 6:15pm - 8:45pm.
We are offering a LGBTQ+ Date Night on the Wheel, this will be a two and half hour event on June 27th from 6:15pm - 8:45pm. The ceramic workshop will be geared towards members of the queer community and, as always in our studio, will be a safe space for all those who join us. Our instructors for the night will also be proud members of the queer community!
HANDS ON COLLECTIVE
Studio – 810 Cormorant Street
