Galleries and Gears

Galleries and Gears

Saturday, 4 October, 11:00 am - 3:00 p.m. | PWYC
Departure/return: Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery
This event is for ages 16+
Distance: 20km round-trip
Difficulty: Easy

Galleries and Gears is a free event, however, we encourage participants to donate to COMPASS Refugee Centre or the Social Development Centre who will be hosting their annual Ride For Refuge fundraisers that day too.

This guided cycling tour visits four exceptional galleries in one memorable day with support from CycleWR. Our leisurely-paced rides between galleries allow plenty of time to appreciate each collection while showcasing why Waterloo region leads in both arts and cycling infrastructure. Expert marshals from Cycle WR will take you on a memorable cycling gallery tour discussing the exhibition themes of displacement, housing, cultural heritage, and environmental sustainability.

Starting at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (KWAG), we'll cycle through the region's acclaimed bike paths to explore:
The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery
The Grebel Gallery
University of Waterloo Art Gallery

Stop #1: Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery

Auto-Biography: Vehicles of identity, community, and globalization
Featuring: Greg Curnoe, Jason Lujan, Lauren Fournier, Melanie Smith, Yan Wen Chang, and objects from the Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum
Curated by Darryn Doull

This group exhibition looks to the road as a connective infrastructure which grounds so much of modern life. It is set in relation to contemporary car culture and commuter life along the corridor with the busiest stretch of highway in North America. The project isn’t just about cars, though. These are vehicles for a vast array of social, economic, and inter-cultural distillations of globalization. The invited artists explore aspects of self, hyper-specific communities, and the horizontality of animal, machine and human, whilst historical museological objects establish additional regional context, connecting vehicular histories to a sense of place in Waterloo Region, and highlighting the subtle ways that vehicles become a part of memory and identity.

Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun Lets’lo:tseltun: Floor Opener
Curated by Darryn Doull

Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun Lets’lo:tseltun is one of Canada’s most outspoken and influential contemporary artists, confronting colonialist suppression, environmental degradation, and the ongoing struggles for Indigenous sovereignty. Of Cowichan (Hul’q’umi’num Coast Salish) and Okanagan (Syilx) descent, he presents his ideas through hard-hitting, polemical, but also playful artworks that now span a forty-year career. Yuxweluptuns’ works can be brutal critiques of issues such as land title, residential schools, and the destruction of the environment, making him a pivotal voice in contemporary art.

Stop #2: Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery

Beyond the Threshold
Featuring: Marzi Alimo, Claire Anderson, Phillip Bandura, D’Andrea Bowie, Judy Chartrand, Michael Flaherty, Sun Forest, Cat Hart, Lance Isaacs, Jennifer Anne Kelly, Raegan Little, Solange Roy, Indira Singh, Mohammad Tabesh, Jessie Tesolin, Loriane Thibodeau, Matt Walker, Jes Young.
Curated by Peter Flannery, Denis Longchamps & Cheyenne Mapplebeck

Now more than ever, housing in Canada is in crisis. In 2021, more than one in ten Canadians reported experiencing homelessness in their lifetime. But homelessness isn’t always visible. With rising costs of living, inflation, and widening inequality, hidden homelessness—like couch-surfing, overcrowded housing, or forced evictions—is on the rise. In Waterloo Region alone, chronic homelessness increased by 129% between 2020 and 2024. Beyond The Threshold brings together the work of 18 artists from across the country who confront these realities through deeply personal and intersectional lenses. Their work speaks to the complex, and often painful, relationship between identity, place, and survival. These stories are rooted in lived experience. Together, these artists offer a glance at what home can look like in the face of instability, change, and hope.

EMBODIED: Gabrielle S. Castonguay
Curated by Cheyenne Mapplebeck

The term “palimpsest” refers to a surface that has been erased, yet still bears the faint remnants of previous inscriptions. This concept serves as the starting point of this exhibition. Gabrielle S. Castonguay, through her skillful work with enamel, delves into contemporary themes by manipulating the surfaces of her pieces with a range of innovative enamelling techniques. The very form and materiality of the metal guide Castonguay’s creative process, serving as the foundation from which each piece evolves. Though each piece is built up with layers upon layers of work, the traces of past actions are never fully obscured—much like how we, as individuals, are continuously shaped by our memories, experiences, and the world around us. The medium itself becomes a powerful tool for Castonguay’s exploration of themes such as motherhood, patriarchal influence, and the broader feminine experience. While these pieces are deeply personal reflections of Castonguay’s own journey, they also resonate universally, inviting viewers to find their own connection with the concepts she presents.

Image: Gabrielle S. Castonguay, What could I have said, What could I have done?, 2013. Copper, enamel, silver, nitrate, patina, silk ropes, velvet, guipure lace. 20″ x 13 1/2″ x 12 1/2″. Collection of the artist.

Stop #3: Grebel Gallery

DRAFTS 6 – Mapping Diasporic Identities brings together six artists whose practices span painting, sculpture, installation, video, and multimedia storytelling. Each draws on personal histories, cultural heritage, and lived experiences in the diaspora to create works that question conventional ideas of identity and belonging. Their art reflects on themes such as displacement, resilience, gender, memory, and cultural hybridity, offering alternative narratives that challenge dominant perspectives. Through diverse materials and approaches, these artists invite viewers to consider how stories are carried across borders and how identity is continuously negotiated, reshaped, and reclaimed.

Stop #4: University of Waterloo Art Gallery

Brenda Mabel Reid’s ongoing large-scale quilt project Underlay explores quilts, architecture, and gender-queerness. Reid’s work challenges binary gender norms and uses quilted-architectural forms to explore quilting as a method of making a queer space that brings people together. In a society predicated on productivity and a 24-hour news and entertainment cycle routinely focusing on crisis and spectacle, Reid proposes the nap as a restorative political action that incites us to revive ourselves and take up space in a joyful manner. As an object that encourages social engagement, Underlay endeavors to provide a safe space for reflection, regeneration, and community-building.

Andrew McPhail: TEXTiles, This is not an AIDS Quilt

In the last decade, Andrew McPhail has produced an ongoing body of textile-based work that draws from his experience as a queer man living with HIV for over 30 years. Developing out of his drawing practice, McPhail’s work has evolved into a hybrid straddling sculpture, installation, and performance. Utilizing readymade disposable materials, ranging from Band-Aids to Kleenex, his accumulative work pointedly examined failure, sexuality, and the frailty of the human body. Text has always played a critical role in his work, and over the last decade McPhail was increasingly drawn to the gaudy impermanence of brightly coloured sequins as a medium for his humorous, often caustic slogans: Sick & Tired. Fragile. Epic Fail. The End. 

Curatorial Tours are generously sponsored by the Gamble Family.

Proudly supported by:

Imagery: 
1. Yan Wen Chang, Resolution Blue (detail), 2022. Oil on canvas, 106.68 x 127cm. Image by LF Documentation. Work courtesy of Susan Hobbs Gallery.
2. Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun Lets’lo:tseltun, Untitled, 2025. Acrylic on canvas. 96 x 72 in. Courtesy of Macaulay + Co. and the artist, photo: Byron Dauncey.
3. Jennifer Anne Kelly, Hope (detail), 2025. Glass, copper, steel. Collection of the artist.
4. Gabrielle S. Castonguay, What could I have said, What could I have done?, 2013. Copper, enamel, silver, nitrate, patina, silk ropes, velvet, guipure lace. 20″ x 13 1/2″ x 12 1/2″. Collection of the artist.
5. Image courtesy of the Grebel Gallery.
6. Brenda Mabel Reid, Underlay (detail Hold Fast festival), 2024, mixed media. Photo courtesy of the artist.
7. Andrew McPhail, Tired, 2020, hand-stitched sequins, pillowcase. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Header/Feature image by KWAG.