Photo Credit: Canadian Tulip Festival
1. Canadian Tulip Festival: Virtual Tulip Legacy Garden Tour
May 14-24, Times Available: More information coming soon
Enjoying the spring tulips and want more? Join a live Tulip Legacy Tour Guide while you wander through 27 of Ottawa’s most beautiful gardens, featuring hundreds of breeds of tulips!
Schedule a Zoom Tour with an incredibly knowledgeable guide. Learn about the history of the tulip as well as the story of how it came to be an iconic piece of Ottawa’s culture. Celebrate Canada’s role in the liberation of the Netherlands in the Second World War from the safety and comfort of your own home.
Streaming May 17 – May 24, various times, ticketed/free – see website for details
Cooped up with the kids? Young at heart? Experience a sparkling stream of theatre, music, dance, puppetry, and performance from around the world in an 8-day digital programme that promises to inspire and stimulate young imaginations. In between playtime and outdoor fun, the WeeFestival offers children and their families a daily dose of nourishing arts and culture!
Designed as a flexible, relaxed, and accessible experience, you and yours can view what they want, when they want, and as often as they want.
3. Free Thursdays: Esmaa Mohamoud Panel Talk
Art Gallery of Hamilton
May 20, 7-8pm, free, registration required
Esmaa Mohamoud: To Play in the Face of Certain Defeat repurposes language and iconography from the realms of professional sport in order to highlight the pressure, sacrifices, and burdens black bodies endure within cultural systems. This panel talk will connect themes from this exhibition to issues and activism unfolding both globally and locally within the Hamilton area.
4. Tangled Art Talks: Aislinn Thomas
Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)
Friday, May 28, 11am, no registration required, free to watch on Facebook Live
Tangled Art + Disability and the AGO have formed a new partnership to showcase the possibilities of a world that honours access, disability and difference. Aislinn Thomas (she / they) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes video, performance, sculpture, installation, and text. She culls material from everyday experiences and relationships, creating work that ranges from poignant to absurd–at times straddling both. Many of Aislinn’s recent projects respond to access and disability. She works alongside and in the legacy of so many who out of necessity treat both as spaces for creative acts.
5. Paddle to the “C” Self-Guided Art Tour
City of Cobourg, Downtown Cobourg DBIA
May 21, all day, in-person (please heed provincial lockdown restrictions)
Visit Downtown Cobourg to enjoy over 40 small paddle boards, painted by local artists, displayed in storefront windows. Riffing off the award-winning children’s book Paddle-to-the-Sea by American author/artist Holling C. Holling, and the subsequent 1966 NFB film by the legendary Bill Mason, this community art project celebrates Cobourg’s deep connection to Lake Ontario and the town’s resilience during the pandemic. The boards will be available to purchase at the end of the exhibit, and a portion of the proceeds will go back to the artists.
Header image: Canadian Tulip Festival