If you’re wondering what exhibitions are on now in Ottawa’s museums and galleries—as well as in museums and art galleries in the Outaouais, Eastern Ontario and Montreal—look no further. This post has the scoop on shows large and small, in Ottawa itself and within a few hours’ drive.
Note that the exhibitions in this post are temporary shows. Permanent exhibitions aren’t listed here; check each institution’s website for details on those. And if a particular museum or gallery isn’t currently hosting a temporary exhibition, the place won’t appear in this list.
Also, make sure to check each institution’s website for its opening hours, which often vary by season. (Many smaller museums are closed from late fall through early spring.)
Do you know of a show I’ve overlooked? Please email me to let me know.
Cover photo of the Canadian Museum of Nature was taken in spring!
Money in 10 Questions: Kids’ Edition (until January 10, 2025): Created from more than 800 questions about money submitted by children across the country, this exhibition features 10 activity stations where kids can learn more about money and hone their financial literacy.
Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, Ottawa
The Island in the Middle of Everywhere (until March 31, 2025): Through photos and a video, this exhibition delves into the fishing and farming practices of the North Coast Salish people on Xwe’etay (pronounced hwe-e-tay), also known as Lasqueti Island, in British Columbia’s Northern Gulf Islands.
First Royals of Europe (until January 19, 2025: Learn about the ancient roots of European royalty in southeastern Europe.
Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa
Our Land, Our Art (until April 14, 2025): Works by artists from across Quebec’s Nunavik region, exhibited alongside artifacts from the Avataq Cultural Institute.
Rewilding (until September 8, 2025): Works focusing on the role of nature in our communities by the 13 winners of the inaugural David Suzuki Foundation Rewilding Arts Prize.
Photo courtesy of the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Butterflies in Flight (until January 2026): See exotic butterflies from Costa Rica and the Philippines flying free in the museum’s Solarium.
Canadian War Museum, Ottawa
Cyprus—A Divided Island (until January 31, 2025): This show highlights the service of over 30,000 Canadians who participated in the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission in Cyprus from 1964 to 1993.
Liberation! Canada and the Netherlands, 1944–1945 (until May 9, 2025): Through photographs and personal stories, this exhibition highlights the role Canada played in liberating the Netherlands during the Second World War.
Winners of the National Youth Remembrance Contests 2024 (until October 13, 2025): This show presents the winning entries—including posters, literary pieces and videos—in a nationwide contest for students from kindergarten through Grade 12.
Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa
The Air of the Now and Gone (January 26 to May 4, 2025): Bringing together videos, installations, paintings and photographs, The Air of the Now and Gone aims to counter apathy and complicate optimism about the future in the face of climate change.
Wan Word (January 26 to May 4, 2025): This exhibition includes works by Abdul Hamid Kanu Jr., Kanna Anigbogu and Don Kwan, who explore the relationships among memory, cultural history and the effects of leaving one’s homeland.
Diefenbunker: Canada’s Cold War Museum, Ottawa
Hidden Heroes: Don Kwan, 2024 Artist in Residence (until February 2, 2025): Artist Don Kwan has created mixed-media pieces to illuminate the role of Canadian essential workers behind the scenes during the Cold War.
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction (until March 2, 2025): Showcasing some 130 works produced over the last seven decades by 45 artists using a range of textile techniques, including weaving, knitting, netting, knotting and felting.
The Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts 2024 (until March 23, 2025): Works by the eight latest laureates of the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts are interspersed throughout the National Gallery of Canada, to create a dialogue with the permanent collection.
2024 Sobey Art Award Exhibition (until April 6, 2025): The gallery is presenting works by the six artists shortlisted for this year’s Sobey Art Award.
Gathered Leaves: Discoveries From the Drawings Vault (until April 13, 2025): This show of drawings from the gallery’s extensive international collection ranges from the 15th to the 20th centuries, including pieces by Le Brun, Klimt, Kandinsky, Munch and others.
Jin-Me Yoon: Honouring a Long View (until March 2026): This enormous photo collage on the south facade of the building’s exterior is designed to prompt conversations about some of the best-known works in the gallery’s collection.
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa
Stories My Father Couldn’t Tell Me: Jeff Thomas Origin (until March 16, 2025): This exhibition explores the critical and creative practices of Jeff Thomas, Urban-Iroquois photographer, curator, activist and cultural theorist. His new series, Dream Panels, reflects the themes of Indigenous masculinity, disability, fatherhood and relationships between land, his ancestors and family that have remained central to his work for more than 40 years.
SAW Gallery, Ottawa
Give Me Shelter (until January 25, 2025): This show presents 12 artistic responses to the issue of housing insecurity and homelessness, by Canadian and international artists and architects.
Zasaan (until April 6, 2026): Zasaan—the Anishinaabemowin word for nest—is an internally illuminated sculpture by Barry Ace and mounted on Arts Court’s exterior facade. It features four Bneswag (Thunderbirds) protecting a nest, symbolizing the four directions, the sacred circle and the nurturing of artists.
Lanark County
Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, Almonte
Signs of the Time (January 18 to April 5, 2025): This exhibition of woven tapestries by award-winning Latvian artist Egils Rozenbergs illuminates the interesting times we live in. The artist weaves “stories” of our era using comtemporary signs and symbols, from sea waves to hashtags.
Leeds-Grenville
Brockville Museum, Brockville
Photo by Dinh Pham on Unsplash.
Quilting Memories (until February 17, 2025): This exhibition showcases stories hand stitched onto local quilts between 1885 and 2024.
Kingston
Agnes Etherington Art Centre
Tracing Kingston’s Solidarities (until June 1, 2025): On the hoardings surrounding the centre’s construction site, artworks inspired by printed media interpret the city’s rich legacy of Black entrepreneurism.
Echoes of Devotion (until 2026; offsite): This large-scale mural by artist Anthony Gebrehiwot is located on the Queen’s University campus. It calls on viewers to activate and strengthen an African identity outside the continent, and it draws attention to the Agnes’s collection of African art.
Union Gallery
side by side (January 14 to February 8, 2025): This fundraiser for the gallery features works by student and professional artists, which will be raffled off at an event on February 8.
Growing Pains (January 14 to February 15, 2025): Presented in conjunction with the Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre (which will run the other half of the exhibition from January 18 to March 22), Growing Pains is a collaborative exhibition by artists Sumera Khan, Shamara Peart, Shanique Peart and Alicia Udvari.
Elsewhere in Eastern Ontario
Museum of Lennox & Addington, Napanee
Big Ideas for Young Humans: How Stories Create Community (until February 15, 2025): In this interactive experience for young (and young at heart) humans, visitors will create, explore, play and connect with a colourful cast of characters from children’s books by Canadian authors.
Montreal
This is admittedly just a small selection of the many, many exhibitions happening in Montreal at any given time! For a more complete list, see the MTL Museums website.
Canadian Centre for Architecture
Reading Landscapes (until February 16, 2025): Reading Landscapes is a display of books from the centre’s collection that reflect on the changing concept of landscape.
Being There: Photography in Arthur Erickson’s Early Travel Diaries (until March 16, 2025): The exhibition examines architect Arthur Erickson’s exchanges with people, places, landscapes, buildings, rituals and ideas during his travels in Europe, North Africa and Asia between 1950 and 1961.
To Build Law (until May 25, 2025): According to a 2020 UN report, the construction industry accounts for at least 38 percent of global carbon emissions globally. This exhibition springs from an upcoming documentary that advocates for a systemic shift in the way we construct and value buildings.
McCord Stewart Museum
To All the Unnamed Women (until January 26, 2025): This show by artist-in-residence Michaëlle Sergile is a tribute to the lives of Black women in Montreal between the years 1870 and 1910. For the show, Sergile has created seven tapestries on Jacquard looms. The exhibition also includes photographs and objects from the museum’s collections.
Manasie Akpaliapik: Inuit Universe (until March 9, 2025): This exhibition features 40 sculptures by Manasie Akpaliapik, a contemporary artist from Baffin Island. Using stone, whale bone and caribou antlers, he creates pieces representing oral tradition, cultural values, the supernatural world, Arctic wildlife and the environment.
Costume Balls: Dressing Up History, 1870–1927 (until August 17, 2025): This show showcases a wide range of historical garments once worn to extravagant costume balls and skating carnivals, along with photographs from the long-ago events. The exhibition also takes a critical look at the way these grand events helped reinforce imperialist myths.
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
ulitsuak | marée montante | rising tide (until March 30, 2025): This work by Glenn Gear is the first Indigenous art commission created specifically for the museum’s outdoor spaces. In this new animation, Inuit geometric figures follow the architectural lines of the museum, gradually filling in its facade.
Ravel Ravel Interval (until April 27, 2025): This immersive video installation by French-Albanian artist Anri Sala presents two almost-simultaneous interpretations of Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D Major. As they perform the piece on video, two pianists vary their tempo, as an example of the uniqueness of human expression.
Two by Two, Together (until October 5, 2025): This exhibition unveils paintings, sculptures, photographs and other pieces that the museum has acquired over the last five years, displayed in groups that create a dialogue between the works.
Montreal Science Centre
Interactive Exhibition Banquet (until March 16, 2025): This interactive show delves into the science of food. Visitors will start in the kitchen and move into the dining room, rolling dough and exploring different tastes and aromas along the way.
Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal
Alanis Obomsawin: The Children Have to Hear Another Story (until January 26, 2025): Dedicated to the work of Abenaki documentary filmmaker, activist and singer Alanis Obomsawin, this exhibition is divided by decade. It presents an overview of her work, along with archival documents and media coverage. Note that this exhibition is taking place at Place Ville-Marie.
60 Artworks, 60 Gifts (until January 31, 2025): This mural along the hoardings surrounding the museum’s construction site features reproductions of 60 artworks that donors have given the museum over its 60-year history.
Wàbigon (until February 16, 2025): Anishinaabe-French artist Caroline Monnet’s group portrait features eight Indigenous women and a child posing in a forest. The image, which echoes the visual language of the Art Nouveau movement, is part of Monnet’s series revisiting major historical and art movements through an Indigenous lens.
As the owner of Ottawa Road Trips, I acknowledge that I live on, work in and travel through the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Nation. I am grateful to have the opportunity to be present on this land. Ottawa Road Trips supports Water First, a non-profit organization that helps address water challenges in Indigenous communities in Canada through education, training and meaningful collaboration.
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