RESIST!

About this event

RESIST! brings together work by Rawan Hassan روان حسن, Gord Hill, Laurence Hyde and Elizabeth MacKenzie, whose practices use art to educate and inspire social change. The exhibition considers how artists document and respond to the world around them, as well as print’s long role in sharing information through newspapers, posters, flyers, books and zines.

Hassan is an interdisciplinary visual artist whose textile-based work and drawings explore Palestinian craft traditions, including tatreez embroidery, and questions of identity, grief, resilience, resistance to erasure, ongoing occupation, colonization and Palestinian futurism. Kwakwaka'wakw Nation artist, author and political activist Gord Hill is known for work addressing decolonization, anti-capitalism and anti-fascism. His graphic novels include The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book (2010), The Anti-Capitalist Resistance Comic Book: From the WTO to the G20 (2012), The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book: Revised and Expanded (2021), and The Antifa Comic Book: Revised and Expanded (2025).

From the City of Burnaby Permanent Art Collection, Laurence Hyde’s Southern Cross (1951) is a rare 118-part wordless novel about the devastation of nuclear testing and warfare. The woodblock series chronicles U.S.-led atomic testing at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Islands and is one of only two copies in existence. Vancouver-based artist Elizabeth MacKenzie’s Cleave (2023–ongoing) comprises hundreds of layered works on paper. According to the exhibition curator, the work processes the act of witnessing devastation in Gaza and acknowledges ongoing suffering there and elsewhere.

Exhibition programming includes the RESIST! Reading Nook, with related books supplied in partnership with Burnaby Public Library. Storytelling with Julian Brave NoiseCat takes place September 20 at 2 p.m.; it is free, registration is required, and light refreshments follow. In the BAG: Sunday is scheduled from 1 to 4 p.m. on September 27 and October 25. Gord Hill will lead a Fireside Chat on October 22 at 2 p.m.; it is free, registration is required by phone at 604-297-4422, and light refreshments follow.

The exhibition runs September 11–November 15, 2026, at Burnaby Art Gallery. Regular gallery hours are Tuesday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.; and closed Monday. Admission is free, with a voluntary suggested donation of $10. The exhibition dates do not indicate continuous opening, and all hours are Vancouver local time. Venue hours: https://www.burnaby.ca/recreation-and-arts/arts-and-culture-facilities/burnaby-art-gallery