The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (AGNS) launches its fall season on Saturday, Nov. 8, and with it comes three exclusive exhibitions from varying artists that will leave onlookers speechless.
The handcrafted wooden masks of Mi’kmaw artist Gordon Sparks will be the focus of the Mi’kma’ki Artists Spotlight exhibition. Sparks sources materials from the natural world to create masks with non-powered tools as a way of ceremony and as a celebration of Mi’kmaw tradition. Sparks’ work has been exhibited across Atlantic Canada as he continues to inspire the next generation of Indigenous artists. The exhibition ends on Sept. 13, 2026.
“I strongly believe in the traditional hand-carved wooden mask, traditional ceremony and storytelling,” says Sparks in a press release from AGNS. “Each mask speaks to me, guides me; the tree that is chosen speaks to me to carve the spirit of our ancestors and the stories of our life givers and protectors that live here in Mi’kma’ki to be shown to all people of the land.
The works of New Brunswick-born landscape painter Edward Mitchell Bannister will be presented in Canada for the first time at the AGNS this season. The first African American/Canadian to win a major American prize at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, Bannister was also an abolitionist alongside his wife, Christiana Carteaux Bannister.
Hidden Blackness: Edward Mitchell Bannister (1826-1902) is curated by multidisciplinary artist David Woods, the organizer of Nova Scotia’s first Black History Month in 1984 and the founder of many arts and cultural organizations, including the Black Artists Network of Nova Scotia. Woods will be joined by artist, writer and filmmaker Sylvia D. Hamilton for a discussion at AGNS on Nov. 20 at 7pm. This exhibition ends on Jan. 11, 2026.
Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler bring forward a collaborative immersive video installation reexamining John Baldessari’s 1971 “Punishment Piece” by researching the stories of those who enacted it. NSCAD students, mostly women, wrote the words, “I will not make any more boring art”, covering the gallery with phrases reminiscent of a school punishment. Hubbards and Birchler sought to bring forward the humanity from this highly conceptual work, shifting the lens from Baldessari to the students who acted in the art piece.
Hubbard / Birchler: No More Boring Art will be on display at the AGNS until Jan. 25, 2026. The artists will join director and curator of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery from the University of British Columbia for a conversation at AGNS on Nov. 8 at 2pm.
For more information about the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and their exhibitions, including their fall programming, visit their website at agns.ca.