Online Events

The Wordless Book and other sounds Philosopher's Cafe

May 7th at 7:30pm.
An online conversation between The Wordless Book and other sounds artist Allen Ball and sociologist Dr. Michael Wilkinson, followed by an audience Q & A.

The Wordless Book and other sounds Bios

Allen Ball was born in London, United Kingdom, and completed undergraduate training at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts (achieving First Class Honours in Painting and a commendation in Printmaking). As a Commonwealth Scholar, Allen graduated from the University of Alberta Master of Visual Arts program. Allen is a Professor in Painting in the Department of Art and Design, and Faculty of Arts' Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, as well as a Canadian War Artist (having served in the Sinai Peninsula in 2017). Allen has been honoured to receive awards from the Killam Trusts, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and Canada Council of the Arts, among others. Allen's works can be found in public and private local, national, and international collections.

Dr. Michael Wilkinson is a sociologist based at Trinity Western University whose research focuses on cultural analyses of religion. He has written about religious experience, the body, religious diversity, immigration, globalization and Pentecostalism. He teaches courses on the sociology of religion, religion and culture, globalization and theory.

The Brewer Beaver Philosopher's Cafe

January 23rd at 2:00pm. This event has been postponed - please check back for more information or sign up for our newsletter.
An online conversation between The Brewer Beaver artists Brady Cranfield and Andrea Nunes and a number of local and Hawaiian knowledge keepers and thinkers, followed by an audience Q & A.

The Brewer Beaver Bios

Brady Cranfield is a sound and visual artist, musician, and writer who lives and works as an uninvited guest on the stolen, occupied, and unceded territories of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkwəy̓ əm (Musqueam), and Səl ̓ ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) people. He holds a MA in Communications and a MFA from Simon Fraser University. Cranfield’s recent public sound work, Weekend Chime, located at Robson Plaza in downtown Vancouver, is part of the City of Vancouver’s permanent collection. www.bradycranfield.ca

Andrea Nunes is a research-based artist, writer, and university academic advisor born to European immigrants on traditional, unceded Snuneymuxw territories. Her work is concerned with everyday relations and relationalities, with a particular focus on how these are inflected through local pasts that aren’t individually remembered. Now living on unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh lands near a captured tidal flat that is now called Lost Lagoon, she is working on an inventory of relic, removed, unacknowledged, and otherwise not-irrelevant sites and objects in eastern Stanley Park, including a misspelled trail marker and a lamp standard from the original 1915 Georgia viaduct. Her instagram is @m.andrea.nunes

Affecting Wild Territory Philosopher's Cafe

October 14th at 7:30pm.
You can view a recording of this event here: Zoom Recording.
An online conversation between Affecting Wild Territory artist Sarah Ronald and zoologist and environmental consultant Phil Henderson, followed by an audience Q & A.

Affecting Wild Territory Bios

Sarah Ronald is a Canadian artist living in Port Coquitlam, BC. Ronald's diverse upbringing in the rural Okanagan shaped her future as a conservation-minded animal artist and aspiring creative writer. After graduating from the Okanagan University College with her BFA, Ronald relocated to the lower mainland of BC, eventually settling in Port Coquitlam where she now creates out of her home studio.

Always pushing her practice to new levels, in 2020 Ronald started creating hand-drawn animations of wildlife, and in 2021 she began projecting her animations in outdoor spaces as a means to experience her animated animals 'in the wild' and outside of traditional art spaces. Ronald has recently started to include site-specific installation art into her practice and sees installation and projected animation work becoming a significant part of her focus as a means to present wildlife in new ways.

Phil Henderson is a zoologist and environmental consultant in Fort Langley who travels widely throughout British Columbia and Alberta conducting studies on plants and animals for other consultants, industry, government and conservation organizations. The presence of species and communities at risk and their role in site ecology features prominently in most studies. Attempting to understand complex interactions between organisms and between organisms and their environment is important to help save them. In his spare time, Phil continues to gather information on plants and animals near and far in a never-ending quest to understand the natural world around him.

By This Means: Segment Ladders Philosopher's Cafe
September 9th at 7:30pm.
You can view a recording of this event here: Zoom Recording.
An online conversation between By This Means: Segment Ladders artist Rachel Yoder and Langara College professor Nancy Pollak, followed by an audience Q & A.

By This Means: Segment Ladders Bios

Rachel Yoder is a visual artist who lives and maintains a studio in a mountain valley near Nelson, BC. Over the last three years, Yoder has focused on the direct effect working as a carpenter for 25 years had on her art practice. In By This Means, Yoder takes the tools and the components familiar from her daily experience of construction and uses these images and processes in making paintings, prints and sculpture.

Rachel Yoder’s paintings have been shown in a variety of alternative venues and have exhibited at Touchstones Museum of Art and History, Nelson, BC; Oxygen Art Centre, Nelson, BC; Gallery 378, Nelson, BC; and Hidden Garden Gallery, New Denver, BC. In 2011, she received a Major Project Grant from the Columbia Basin Trust/Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance. The resulting body of work, Memento Mori, was exhibited in 2014 at Kootenay Gallery, Castlegar, BC, in 2015 at Campbell River Art Gallery, Campbell River, BC, and is currently on display at Kalein Hospice Centre, Nelson, BC.

Nancy Pollak is not an artist. She is a MoP – a member of the public who visits galleries and experiences art without a care in the world [of art]. In her non-MoP hours, she teaches in the Interdisciplinary Studies Department at Langara College and wrestles with social justice issues, theory, and literacy – cultural and otherwise. Nancy was active in feminist publishing in BC for many years and has climbed a few ladders (and even more trees). She looks forward to yacking with Rachel about bodies and bodies of work.

To Glide, To Say Bye Meet the Artist
June 19th noon-5pm at the Fort Gallery. Please RSVP by noon on Wednesday, June 16th.
Please note: Due to COVID restrictions, current gallery capacity is 2 individuals or family groups, 4 people max. Drop-ins are welcome, but may need to wait outside before entering.

To Glide, To Say Bye Philosopher's Cafe
June 3rd at 7:30pm.
You can view a recording of this event here: Zoom Recording.
An online conversation between To Glide, To Say Bye artist Sora Park and contemporary dancer/choreographer Katie Cassady, which will explore perspectives on dance, the built environment and respective relationships to dance floors, followed by an audience Q & A.

To Glide, To Say Bye Bios

Sora Park is an interdisciplinary artist based in Langley, BC. She received her BFA in Photography from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, Canada and her MA in Fine Arts from Bergen Academy of Art and Design in Bergen, Norway.

Her works have been exhibited nationally and internationally in various platforms, including Shiryaevo Biennale of Contemporary Art (Samara, Russia), Latitude 53 (Edmonton, Canada), Centre for Contemporary Arts ( Glasgow, UK), Weserburg Museum of Modern Art (Bremen, Germany) and Onassis Cultural Centre (Athens, Greece). She has received grants from Arts Council Norway (2016), Canada Council for the Arts (2019) and the BC Arts Council (2020).

Katie Cassady is a performer and emerging choreographer based in Vancouver, the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Katie completed her training at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance and Simon Fraser University, and holds a BA in Art History from the University of British Columbia. She has had the honour to perform with Kokoro Dance, Amber Funk Barton/the response, Julianne Chapple/Future Leisure, and the TWObigsteps Collective. Her choreographic work seeks to explore interconnectedness, ephemerality, and relationship.

Comforter Philosopher's Cafe
April 15th at 7:30pm.
You can view a recording of this event here: Zoom Recording.
An online conversation between Comforter artists Olivia de Fleuriot, Laura Rosengren and Sarah van Sloten and Trinity Western University English and Gender Studies Professor Holly Nelson, followed by an audience Q & A.

Comforter Bios

Holly Faith Nelson, Ph.D., is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Gender Studies Institute at Trinity Western University, where she is also a Professor in the Department of English and Creative Writing. She has co-authored one monograph, co-edited nine books, and her many articles have appeared in a wide range of scholarly journals and academic collections on literature and/or gender. She publishes on the work of women writers from the medieval through the early modern period.

Laura Rosengren is a Canadian artist, originally from Northwestern Ontario, recently relocated to Stó:lō territory in Chilliwack,BC. Her practice involves a mixed material approach to painting and considers questions around motherhood and labour. She is currently participating in an Artist Residency in Motherhood and is the recipient of a 2021 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant. Laura has a BFA from the Alberta University of the Art, a BEd in Art Education from Mount Saint Vincent University and a MATS from Regent College. Recent exhibitions include a solo show at Kings University (2019) and a three person exhibit at CityScape gallery (2021). Laura has attended residencies at Anderson Ranch in Aspen, CO, Whale and Star studio in Miami, FL.

Sarah van Sloten is an interdisciplinary artist currently based in Calgary, AB on Treaty 7 territory. She received an MFA from the University of Windsor (2016), and a BFA from the Alberta University of the Arts (2010). Van Sloten has recently completed a residency with Gushul Studios in Blairmore, AB (2020) and participated in the Hibernation Project in Calgary (2020). She currently sits on the board of The New Gallery, a non-profit artist-run centre located in Calgary Chinatown.
Photo credit: Luke Maddaford.

Olivia de Fleuriot Perry is an artist and a mother who interweaves the performative gestures of motherhood in her soft sculptural forms, consisting of fabric, yarn, and thread. Olivia de Fleuriot Perry earned her MFA in 2019 from Emily Carr University (ECUAD) as a recipient of the SSHRC Master’s scholarship (2018). She will be a part of a group show, Comforter, at the Fort Gallery, in Fort Langley, BC, in April 2021. In spring 2021, de Fleuriot Perry’s work will be published in Milked Magazine Issue 3, Body & Form. In 2020, she exhibited work in two online shows, Home-works, curated by Spilt Milk Gallery, Edinburgh, UK, and Art in Isolation, curated by Dal Schindell Gallery, Vancouver, BC. de Fleuriot Perry exhibited in the MFA Thesis Show at ECUAD, in April 2019. In 2018, she was a part of the SSHRC funded Leaning Out of Windows group exhibition at ECUAD. In 2015, de Fleuriot Perry was a part of a two-person show, Art On Demand 1:3, at The Reach Gallery Museum, in Abbotsford, BC; and a solo show, Cityscapes, at the Langley Centennial Museum, in Fort Langley, BC.

La Ligue Gourmande Food Performance Event
Mar 18th at 7:30pm.

You are invited to join us for an online cocktail hour and food performance hosted by La Ligue Gourmande artist Todd Gronsdahl. Gronsdahl will teach participants to make his signature Fort Langley-themed cocktail.

Ingredients to have on hand:
1 1/2 oz of vodka
3 oz cranberry juice
1 oz grapefruit juice
grapefruit slice to garnish

Hearken back to your pre-covid days and dress in formal or costume attire. Crazy Zoom backdrops encouraged and welcomed.

Please submit the RSVP Form by Thursday, March 18th at noon or send an email to: fortgallery@hotmail.com to let us know you plan to attend and we will send you a Zoom link.

La Ligue Gourmande Philosopher's Cafe
Feb 11th at 7:30pm.
You can view a recording of this event here: Zoom Recording.
An online interview with La Ligue Gourmande artist Todd Gronsdahl. The Cafe will include an interview of Gronsdahl by Clare Omelaniec, followed by a moderated discussion and an audience Q & A.
Guests: exhibiting artist Todd Gronsdahl and interviewer Clare Omelaniec.

La Ligue Gourmande Bio

Todd Gronsdahl is an artist from Saskatchewan working primarily in sculpture and drawing. Through the use of humour and narrative, Gronsdahl’s work complicates official histories and legitimizing mythologies.
Informed by folk art and self-taught practitioners, Gronsdahl treats his subject matter with a rural sensibility. Through a practical repurposing of vernacular forms and found materials, coupled with an intuitive approach to building, his work often has an unrefined or pragmatic aesthetic. Gronsdahl’s sculptures and drawings are charged with narrative potential. Each project emerges from invented stories and colorful characters that speak to his experience. His artwork is an enactment of these elaborate fictions with his sculptures, in particular, functioning not unlike museum replicas or artifacts. Todd Gronsdahl

Of Stuff Storytelling Event
Jan 28th at 7:30pm.
You can view a recording of this event here: Zoom Recording.

On Jan 28th, the Fort Gallery will host an online storytelling event linked to our current exhibition, Of Stuff by Jazz Keillor. You are invited to participate in two ways . . .

1. Attend the event and listen to the stories of stuff that have been submitted by the community.

2. Contribute your own submission - a photograph and story of a personal object. See details below.

Please submit a photograph of a personal object and an accompanying story using the form here: https://jasminekeillor.wufoo.com/forms/z16iydvp0b8hbhm/, You can also submit by posting your image and story to Instagram and tagging @fortgallery.

These contributions continue to be printed and assembled into an accordion-style book currently on display in the center of the gallery space.

The Storytelling Event will dive into these histories on January 28th, hosted by the gallery live over Zoom. Fostering a unique dialogue surrounding local material culture through the personal lens of gallery goers, participants will have the opportunity to share their stories and engage in a fascinating round of show and tell moderated by exhibiting artist Jazz Keillor.

Of Stuff Philosopher's Cafe
Dec 10th at 7:30pm.
An online discussion on the exploration of stuff. The Cafe will include a short presentation by each guest, followed by a moderated dialogue and an audience Q & A.
Guests: exhibiting artist Jazz Keillor and award winning poet Fiona TInwei Lam.

Of Stuff Bios

Jazz Keillor is an emerging artist currently based in Halifax, NS. Her artwork often takes the form of drawings, paintings and miniature sculptures. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Mount Allison University, in Sackville, New Brunswick with a major in painting and sculpture and a minor in art history. Upon graduating in 2015, she was chosen as the New Brunswick provincial winner of the BMO 1st Art Invitational Student Art Competition. In 2016, she was awarded the Emergency Artist Residency Award at Sparkbox Studios in Picton, Ontario and in 2019 she received an Alberta Foundation for the Arts Individual Project Grant. http://jazzkeillor.ca

Fiona Tinwei Lam’s third collection of poetry Odes & Laments celebrates the overlooked wonder and beauty in the everyday, while lamenting harm to our ecosystems. She has authored two previous poetry books, a children’s book, edited The Bright Well: Contemporary Canadian Poems on Facing Cancer, and co-edited Love Me True: Writers Reflect on the Ins, Outs, Ups & Downs of Marriage with Jane Silcott. Lam won The New Quarterly’s Nick Blatchford Prize and was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award. Her work appears in more than thirty-five anthologies, including The Best Canadian Poetry in English (both 2010 and 2020) and Forcefield: 77 Women Poets of BC. Her award-winning poetry videos have screened at festivals locally and internationally. She teaches at Simon Fraser University’s Continuing Studies. fionalam.net

Journey's Junction Philosopher's Cafe
Oct 29th at 7:30pm.
An online panel discussion on the plight of the Fraser River Sockeye Salmon.
Guests: Journey's Junction artist Barbara Zeigler and Stó:lō Elder Eddie Gardner.

Journey's Junction Bios

Barbara Zeigler is an artist, Associate Professor, and Supervisor of the UBC Printmedia Research Centre of the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She received her BFA in Painting and her MFA in Printmaking from the University of Illinois. Additionally, she studied in Munich, Germany at the Akademie der bildenden Künste and the Universität München. In Canada she has also taught at the University of Alberta, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Queen's University, and in the USA at the University of Illinois. Barbara Zeigler's Journey's Junction, an exhibition of work concerning the Fraser River sockeye salmon is currently on display at the Fort Gallery through November 8.

Eddie Gardner, a Stó:lō Elder from the Skwah First Nation in Chilliwack B.C., is elder-in-residence with University of the Fraser Valley (UFV). Eddie works tirelessly to inform the public about the health risks and the threat to wild salmon posed by net-pen fish farms, and to challenge retailers to adopt a sustainable seafood policy that protects their customers.

In June of 2013 Eddie organized and spearheaded the Spirit of Wild Salmon Gala Fundraising Dinner – a hugely successful event that raised funding for and public awareness of the need to protect Wild Salmon. A pioneer of Boycott Rallies in the Fraser Valley and Lower Mainland, since 2013 Eddie Gardner has organized and led Farmed Salmon Boycotts in Chilliwack and Abbotsford – as well as supporting new Boycott chapters in Duncan, Nanaimo, Burnaby, Coquitlam and North Vancouver. His Rallies have also inspired Boycott startups in Cranbrook, Kamloops, and Kelowna, and as far away as Halifax Nova Scotia.