May 22, 2025
INDIGENOUS ARTISTS WILL BE FEATURED AMONG OTHER ARTISTS hailing from both sides of the 49th parallel from June 14, 2025 to January 10, 2026 at The Reach Gallery Museum in Abbotsford.
Parallax(e): Perspectives on the Canada–U.S. Border / Perspectives sur la frontière entre le Canada et les États–Unis will exhibit work from contemporary artists Sonny Assu, Dr. Shawn Brigman, Corwin Clairmont, Joe Feddersen, Dr. Michelle Jack, Andreas Rutkauskas, Deb Silver, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Henry Tsang, Carrielynn Victor, Fred Wah & Rita Wong (with Nick Conbere), Dr. Cease Wyss, and Claude Zervas.
From the museum’s web page devoted to the exhibition:
In the mid-nineteenth century, U.S. expansionist ambitions came into conflict with British territorial claims, represented by Hudson’s Bay Company trading posts scattered throughout the Pacific Northwest. Diplomatic negotiations led to the creation of the international boundary along the 49th parallel. The western end of the border was a geopolitical invention by British and U.S. officials, engineers, and surveyors working in Indigenous territories, which have their own sovereign boundaries.
This landmark exhibition brings together for the first time historic photographs, watercolours, and maps made by the boundary surveyors who drew a line from the Salish Sea to the Rocky Mountains between 1857 and 1862. Parallax is a collaboratively curated project that puts these nineteenth-century archival materials into dialogue with ambitious sculptures, photographs, installations, and new media works made by contemporary artists.
The Terra Foundation for American Art in Chicago, which supported the exhibition with funding, described Parallax on its website as
a collaboratively curated exhibition that presents the plural history of the demarcation of the western Canada-U.S. border along the 49th parallel. Parallax prompts audiences to reconsider the border as a visual invention, revealing how it was drawn through Indigenous lands by American and British officials, astronomers, and engineers in the nineteenth century. A legacy website will be the primary vehicle of post-exhibition research dissemination due to the accessible and expansive nature of its format.
Admission is free to the opening party at The Reach on June 14, 2025 from 2:00pm – 4:00pm.
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We acknowledge that the land on which we work is the unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.