Richmond BC, Canada #richmondartgallerybc
The Lulu Series is an annual spring series of talks about Art in the City and its importance to establishing connections between citizens and their communities. For the 2025 series Richmond Public Art is partnering with Richmond Art Gallery and the Wilson School of Design at KPU to present three engaging talks. We launch the 2025 season with Josée Drouin-Brisebois, Director of National Engagement at the National Gallery of Canada.
Drouin-Brisebois will discuss the recent projects the National Gallery has developed in public spaces across Canada. For many people, art museums are places that are inaccessible, irrelevant and unconnected to their life experiences. The very architecture of these “temples” with their imposing façades can be intimidating for people who feel neither represented nor welcomed in these buildings; meanwhile, museums like the National Gallery of Canada have a mandate to develop, maintain and make known their collections and to promote knowledge, understanding and appreciation of art.
How do we reconcile the mission of museums and the apprehensions of considerable segments of the public? How can we share works from the national collection to make them more accessible to communities? How can we work with the communities themselves to create transformative experiences with local, national, and even international influence? These are some of the questions at the core of the museum’s renewed National Engagement initiative directed by Josée Drouin-Brisebois.
Free with registration required.
Doors open at 5:30 pm.
About the Presenter:
Josée Drouin-Brisebois is Director of National Engagement at the National Gallery of Canada, where she was formerly Senior Curator of Contemporary Art. She recently curated the 13th Kaunas Biennial (2022) and was instrumental in curating and directing the Canadian participation at a number of Venice Biennales: Steven Shearer (2011), Shary Boyle (2013) Geoffrey Farmer (2017) and Isuma (2019). Other recent projects include the commission of artworks by Christian Boltanski, Geneviève Cadieux, Liam Gillick, Rashid Johnson, Lina Lapelytė, Laura Lima, Pakui Hardware, Augustas Serapinas, Emilia Škarnulytė and Althea Thauberger, among many others. Josée is also the coordinating curator for Erica Rutherford: Her Lives Her Works organized by the Confederation Centre Art Gallery and presented at the National Gallery (2025) as well as the co-curator of Rodney Graham’s upcoming retrospective organized with the Vancouver Art Gallery (2027).
Since 2003, the City of Richmond has presented regional, national and international speakers including acclaimed artists, architects, urban planners and other cultural leaders. Previous lecture topics have included planning and placemaking, public and environmental art, art as community development, art as urban revitalization, architecture, artists’ live/work spaces and sculpture parks.
