N. Vancouver

Gallery Hours

Tu–Su: 10 am–5 pm; M: closed

N. Vancouver is an exhibition of photography, video, sculpture, and weaving, bringing together artists from this region who have engaged with the specific theme of the North Shore. N. Vancouver is an opportunity for the Polygon’s first audiences to witness the imaginative possibilities of visual artworks in discourse with the immediate surroundings of its new home.

From its beginnings as the Coast Salish village of Eslhá7an, through its development as an industrial town, to its current emergence as a gateway to leisure industries devoted to its mountain setting, North Vancouver is remarkable for the ways its regional histories and transformations remain visible today. The territories of the Skwxwú7mesh and Tsleil-Waututh interweave along a waterfront still active as an industrial port of call. Newly built concrete grain terminals lining the port road are little different from those erected in the early part of the 20th century. Docks and railyards commingle with the area’s suburbanization and progression as a bedroom community, and the shipyards, which declined after World War II, are now refurbished as restaurants and cultural hubs.

Such conditions provide North Vancouver with a rich and varied tapestry, amplified by the natural abundance of its coastal forest setting and growing in complexity as development descends the mountain slopes toward Burrard Inlet and concentrates near Vancouver’s harbour.

N. Vancouver showcases 26 artists whose work emerges from or reflects on this land and landscape. New commissions by Jordan Abel, Raymond Boisjoly, Andrew Dadson, Babak Golkar, Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Brian Jungen, Cameron Kerr, Owen Kydd, Tim Lee, Myfanwy MacLeod, Althea Thauberger with Natalie Purschwitz, Kevin Schmidt, Vilhelm Sundin, Stephen Waddell, Holly Ward, and Tracy Williams are in dialogue with existing works by Stan Douglas, Greg Girard, Rodney Graham, Fred Herzog, Curt Lang, Lisa Lewis, N.E. Thing Company, Shelley Thomas, and Melvin Williams.