June 7, 2025
Arts Court
67 Nicholas St.
Exhibitions are free and open to the public before 9 pm. A ticket to Pique is required after 9 pm on Saturday, June 7.
Seen /Unseen
Where: Atelier and Microcinema
Where: Atelier and Microcinema
When: 14:00-0:00
Artists:
Aly Joy-Lily McDonald
Chyme, Dominique
LuCille Giwa
Luniverse.JPG
Yomi Orimoloye
Lighting and media designer: MvB
A multidisciplinary exhibition and artist talkback exploring the paradox of visibility for Black artists.
Seen / Unseen examines the complex relationship Black artists have with visibility—how being seen can be affirming, but also leaves one vulnerable to misinterpretation, surveillance, and commodification. Through performance, storytelling (music and poetry), media, and visual art, the exhibition invites attendees into a space where seeing and being seen becomes an active, dynamic exchange.
It asks:
How do we control, or attempt to control how we are perceived?
What does it mean to be truly seen versus merely watched?
How does being seen or unseen shape an artist’s creative freedom and self-expression?
Presented in partnership with the Ottawa Black Artists Kollective.
ᐃᔨᓚᐅᖅᓯᒪᔪᒍᑦ / ᑕᑯᓯᒪᔪᒍᑦ Ijilauqsimajugut / Takusimajugut (We were hidden / We are seen)
Where: SAW Gallery
Where: SAW Gallery
When: 14:00-0:00
Artists:
Germaine Arnaktauyok, Aedan Corey, Lydia Jaypoody, Kablusiak, Malaya Kisa-Knickelbein, Taqialuq Nuna, Annie Pootoogook, Aghalingiak Ohokannoak, Jason Sikoak, Ningiukulu Teevee, Oviloo Tunnilie, James Ungalaq, Mark Kenneth Wood, Michael Yerxa and Yurak
Historically, the stories of Inuit do not shy from the taboo, the hidden, the parts of being that others whisper about. When did we begin to whisper, too?
ᐃᔨᓚᐅᖅᓯᒪᔪᒍᑦ / ᑕᑯᓯᒪᔪᒍᑦ (Ijilauqsimajugut/Takusimajugut / We Were Hidden/We Are Seen) seeks to voice the stories of the Inuit identities beyond the binary, contextualizing the changes within Inuit concepts of gender and sexuality, recognizing the history, acknowledging the impacts of rapid post-contact cultural shifting on queer Inuit identities.
Special thanks to the Indigenous Art Centre for their kind collaboration. The exhibition is funded in part by the Curatorial Projects: Indigenous and Culturally Diverse program of the Ontario Arts Council.
Right of Way
Where: Daly avenue between nicholas and waller
Where: Daly avenue between nicholas and waller
When: 14:00-21:00
Guillermo Trejo
Danica Drago
Compagnie ODD
Produced by Youth x Pass the Vibes
Experience vibrant art programming on Daly Avenue, transformed into a pedestrian-only festival space outside Arts Court in downtown Ottawa, where traffic signs, construction, and street mobility inspire an eclectic mix of visual art, craft, performance, and installation.
The pop-up exhibition space invites you to engage with participatory art, hang out in our scaffold structure, grab a bite from local food vendors, and vibe to DJ sets from Pass the Vibes.
Presented with support from the City of Ottawa
New Suns
Where: Artengine
Where: Artengine
When: 11:00-22:00
Suyi Davies Okungbowa
WhiteFeather Hunter
Seth Thomson
Emily Pelstring and Naomi Okabe
Kemi Craig
Eva Grant
Melanie Barnett and Kriss Li
Soundscape by Ben Globerman
New Suns is the immersive outcome of Artengine’s Worldbuilding Lab, a collaborative space where artists and thinkers crafted a speculative future beyond ecological collapse and societal fragmentation. In this imagined world, humanity has evolved, through adaptation, hybridity, and deep relationality, into something fluid, interconnected, and symbiotic with the more-than-human world.
Emerging from the ashes of extractive systems and neoliberal ideologies, the works in this exhibition depict cryogenic metamorphoses, amphibious human-animal hybrids, memory-sharing networks, and ritualistic biotechnologies. Here, rest and grief are tools of resistance, and identity is no longer singular, but part of a vast, living continuum.
Far from dystopia or utopia, New Suns is a provocation: what new worlds can we imagine together? And what might we need to become to live in them?
Presented by Artengine