Free First Friday Nights, presented by BMO, offer free admission to the Vancouver Art Gallery from 4 to 8 PM on the first Friday of every month. It is an accessible way to spend an evening viewing art, revisiting favourite galleries, or introducing children to the museum, since admission is always free for visitors aged 18 and under.
Advance reservations are recommended to guarantee entry, though a limited number of walk-in tickets may be available depending on capacity. Tickets are limited to two per booking, so each visitor in a larger group should reserve separately.
During my visit, I especially loved two exhibitions, Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama and That Green Ideal: Emily Carr and the Idea of Nature.
Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama
Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama was the first major solo exhibition and retrospective devoted to the documentary photographer. His work covered more than fifty years, beginning with photographs of the Civil Rights Movement in the southern United States.
The exhibition traced his documentation of social justice movements, countercultures, Indigenous communities in Saskatchewan, the Doukhobors of eastern British Columbia, and the Japanese Canadian Redress movement. His photographs captured community, joy, resistance, and the everyday lives of people living through periods of social change.
The exhibition also included Cindy Mochizuki’s documentary film, Between Pictures: The Lens of Tamio Wakayama, which followed Wakayama’s journey to the American South through archival footage, animation, and interviews.
I loved how personal and immediate the photographs felt. Rather than only documenting major historical moments, Wakayama brought attention to the people within them, including their relationships, expressions, and daily lives.
That Green Ideal: Emily Carr and the Idea of Nature
That Green Ideal: Emily Carr and the Idea of Nature is the Vancouver Art Gallery’s largest solo exhibition of Emily Carr’s work in more than twenty years. Located on the first floor, the exhibition features more than 100 works examining Carr’s relationship with the forests and landscapes of the Pacific Northwest.
The exhibition looks closely at how Carr translated her experience of nature into paintings that expressed movement, atmosphere, and spirituality. It also considers the artistic and philosophical influences that shaped her work, including Romanticism, European modernism, and her belief in a divine presence within nature.
Another section examines Carr’s depictions of Indigenous villages and totem poles, including the historical assumptions that shaped how Indigenous cultures were represented during her lifetime.
Seeing so many of Carr’s paintings together made it easier to notice the movement in her trees, skies, and forest scenes. I especially enjoyed seeing how her approach to nature developed across such a large collection of work.
