Current and Upcoming Shows

Upcoming Exhibitions

• First Gallery @ FAB
• FAB Gallery Main Floor

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Buddy at the Banff Park Zoo

May 15 - June 1, 2024

First Gallery @ FAB

Reception

University of Alberta faculty, staff, students and invited guests
Thursday May 16, 2024 | 7:30 - 10 pm | FAB Gallery

Buddy at the Banff Park Zoo

By Daniel Evans, Ludmila Lima De Morais, Lianne McTavish

This virtual reality artwork allows participants to become a polar bear named Buddy. Buddy was held captive at the Banff Park Zoo in Banff National Park between 1922 and 1937. This artwork recreates Buddy’s experience of his concrete cage, equipped with high iron bars. When visitors to FAB Gallery put on a virtual reality headset and hold the controllers, they can see what Buddy saw, in polar bear vision, and move around his relatively small cage, or take a swim in his plunge pool.

Join the artists & research team for an informal gallery talk about the creation of the work on Saturday May 25 at 12 pm.

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The True Cost of Oil: Canada’s Oil Sands and the Last Great Forest

May 15 - June 1, 2024

FAB Gallery Main Floor

Reception

Thursday May 16, 2024 | 7:30 - 10 pm | FAB Gallery

The True Cost of Oil: Canada’s Oil Sands and the Last Great Forest

By editorial and fine art photographer Garth Lenz

Presented by Environmental Defence Canada and Keepers of the Water

The True Cost of Oil exhibit by editorial and fine art photographer Garth Lenz, contrasts Alberta’s oil sands - one of the biggest industrial projects in the world - and the surrounding Boreal Forest, an essential carbon storehouse and home to countless, unique species. The oil sands, including the tailings “ponds” that hold toxic wastewater, a byproduct of production, are a growing environmental threat. They harm Alberta’s landscape, wildlife, and waterways. They endanger local communities’ health and way of life.

Garth’s aerial images capture the vast tar mines, tailings ponds, and refineries that lie in the middle of some of the world’s largest wetlands and remaining tracts of forest, serving as a visual metaphor for the cost of the world’s ongoing dependence on fossil fuels.

The True Cost of Oil invites viewers to consider the cost of this dependence and the damage already done – the scarred land, the boreal forest and peatlands ripped up, the compromised waterways – as well as the value of what’s left to safeguard and the importance of honouring the treaties, close relationship to the land and stewardship of local Indigenous Nations.

Panel Info

On May 16, 6 pm in FAB 2-20 join us for an artist talk and presentation featuring photographer Garth Lenz and special guests, get a look out the passenger seat window, as he shares his airborne experience capturing images of the oil sands and the forest ecosystem from above the treeline.

Hear a firsthand account of what it’s like to live downstream of the oil industry and its damaging impacts, from a member of a local Indigenous community. 

Register Here For the Artist Talk & Panel

  

 

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Visiting FAB Gallery

FAB Spring Gallery Hours:

Wednesday to Friday from 11 am - 5 pm
Saturday from 12 - 3 pm

Note: FAB Gallery will be closed from April 29 - May 14, 2024

FAB Gallery Location:

1-1 Fine Arts Building
University of Alberta
112 Street and 89 Avenue 

Second floor gallery can only be accessed by stairs at this time. We apologize for this significant barrier to access.

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Upcoming Exhibitions 

May 15 - June 1, 2024

• Buddy at the Banff Park Zoo (Daniel Evans, Ludmila Lima De Morais, Lianne McTavish)
• The True Cost of Oil: Canada's Oil Sands and the Last Great Forest (Garth Lenz)

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Visit What's On for more art shows, concerts, and live theatre listings.