Burnaby Art Gallery presents RESIST! exhibition on art as witness to social change

Burnaby Art Gallery will present RESIST! from Sept. 11 to Nov. 15, 2026. The exhibition brings together work by Rawan Hassan روان حسن, Gord Hill, Laurence Hyde and Elizabeth MacKenzie, examining how artists use analogue practices including printmaking and drawing to document lived experience, confront injustice and encourage social change.

Hassan’s textile-based works and drawings consider the preservation and evolution of Palestinian craft traditions, including tatreez embroidery, while engaging identity, resilience, grief, resistance and possible futures for Palestinian culture and community. Work by Gord Hill, a Kwakwaka'wakw artist, author and political activist, addresses Indigenous resistance, decolonization, anti-capitalism and anti-fascism through graphic novels that document historical and contemporary movements for social and political change.

A featured work is Hyde’s Southern Cross (1951), from the City of Burnaby Permanent Art Collection. The rare 118-part wordless novel chronicles the devastating effects of nuclear testing in the Pacific Islands and was created in response to United States-led atomic testing at Bikini Atoll. The woodblock series, one of only two known copies, reflects on the human cost of warfare and environmental destruction.

The exhibition also includes MacKenzie’s Cleave (2023-ongoing), comprising hundreds of layered, intimate works on paper. The Vancouver artist’s project reflects on the ongoing genocide in Gaza as an act of witnessing and draws attention to civilians affected by violence and conflict.

In partnership with Burnaby Public Library, the gallery will offer the RESIST! Reading Nook, a space to explore resistance through varied cultural perspectives. Public programming includes a storytelling event with Julian Brave NoiseCat on Sunday, Sept. 20 at 2 pm; free all-ages drop-in activities in the BARN studio on Sept. 27 and Oct. 25 from 1 to 4 pm; a Fireside Chat with Gord Hill on Thursday, Oct. 22 at 2 pm; and an Artists in Conversation event with Rawan Hassan روان and Elizabeth MacKenzie, joined by curators Jennifer Cane and Emily Dundas Oke, on Sunday, Nov. 15 at 2 pm.

Since 1967, Burnaby Art Gallery has collected, preserved and presented visual art by local, national and internationally recognized artists. The gallery, Canada’s only public art museum dedicated to works on paper, manages more than 7,100 works in the City of Burnaby Permanent Art Collection as well as the City’s Public Art Collection. More information is available at burnabyartgallery.ca.