Surrey Art Gallery’s UrbanScreen exhibition celebrates connections to land through Salish sun and thunderbird

Surrey Art Gallery will present Ovila Mailhot: Shifting Skies—Stories in Motion at its offsite UrbanScreen venue. The exhibition runs until Oct. 23, 2026, and returns from March 1 to April 6, 2027.

UrbanScreen is located at Surrey Civic Plaza on the Surrey Libraries City Centre Branch at 10350 University Drive. Screenings begin 30 minutes after sunset and end at midnight.

Mailhot, a self-taught artist originally from Seabird Island, B.C., has roots in the Nlaka'pamux and Stó:lō Nations. In two animations featuring the sun and thunderbird, he uses movement and memory to express traditional teachings and ancestral elements of Coast Salish art.

Mailhot said the works were made while he was living in Indiana, far from the forests, waters and mountains of B.C. Seeing weather systems there brought back a longing for the landscapes and community that shaped him, he said. The gallery said the exhibition invites viewers to consider their own connection to home and to the land they occupy, noting that experiences of home and belonging remain significant for Indigenous people living away from their home territories.