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 (with a few exceptions)
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.) I’ll be expanding this list regularly to include many of those smaller museums and galleries. Stay tuned!
Breaking the Pattern: Women, Livestock and Climate Resilience in Mexico and Guatemala (indefinite end date): Across Mexico and Guatemala, women play key roles in farming. This temporary exhibition emerged from the TeleGAN project, which works with ranchers in Mexico and Guatemala, and shines a light on women’s leadership and often-invisible labour.
Canadian Museum of History, Gatineau
Retro—Popular Music in Canada From the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s (until January 18, 2026): This exhibition immerses visitors in classic CanCon via artifacts, handwritten lyrics and the sounds of Céline Dion, k.d. lang, Kashtin, Rush and other Canadian artists.
River of Dreams—Impressionism on the St. Lawrence (until August 30, 2026): This show features Quebec Impressionists such as Maurice Cullen, Clarence Gagnon, Ozias Leduc, Henrietta Mabel May, James Wilson Morrice and Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté. Many trained in France before returning home to depict rural landscapes and urban life in Quebec using the techniques they’d learned abroad.
Wi’k+palu’k Sam Glodeo’q ta’n wetapeksitaq: Honouring the Belonging of Sam Glode (until November 29, 2026): In this exhibition, the museum invites visitors to “step into the land and waters of Kespukwitk (Southwest Nova Scotia) to experience the Mi’kmaw ways of knowing and being that shaped the life of Sam Glode — a Mi’kmaw Knowledge Carrier, treaty protector, veteran, harvester, and guide.”
Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa
Photo courtesy of the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Butterflies in Flight (until January 18, 2026): See exotic butterflies from Costa Rica and the Philippines flying free in the museum’s Solarium.
Life onto Land: The Devonian (until September 7, 2026): This exhibition showcases Tiktaalik roseae, a fossil that helps us understand how limbed vertebrates that live on land (like humans) arose from lobe-finned ancestors that lived in water. American palaeontologists unearthed the Tiktaalik roseae fossil on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut in 2004, but this is the first time it has been on display in Canada.
Qikiqtait: Where Inuit Knowledge and Innovation Come Together (until September 6, 2027): This show delves into decades of the eider down harvest among the Inuit of Sanikiluaq on the Belcher Islands in Hudson Bay. The story includes groundbreaking research and innovation designed to support Inuit priorities.
Canadian War Museum, Ottawa
Last Voices of the Second World War (until January 18, 2026): To mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, this show presents new interviews from some of its last surviving veterans, along with personal mementoes.
Canada’s Unknown Soldier (until May 24, 2026): This 18-panel wall display explores the history and significance of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the National War Memorial in Ottawa.
Canada at War Against Japan, 1941–1945 (until August 31, 2026): This show explores Canada’s involvement in the war against Japan, including the Battle of Hong Kong, the experiences of prisoners of war and the forced relocation of Japanese-Canadians.
Winners of the National Youth Remembrance Contests 2025 (until October 18, 2026): Each year, students across Canada submit artwork, poetry, essays and videos to the National Youth Remembrance Contests, organized by the Legion National Foundation. This exhibition features the winning entries: eight posters, two literary pieces and two videos.
Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa
Material Journeys (January 25, 2026 to May 3, 2026): This show features works by textile artists Marisa Gallemit, Zoe Kreye and Sukaina Kubba. The pieces create immersive environments that invite visitors to reconsider how their material journeys can help them understand new experiences and find home wherever they are.
Diefenbunker: Canada’s Cold War Museum, Ottawa
Permanent exhibitions include Canada and the Cold War; An Inuit Story: The DEW Line; and A Nuclear Family Kitchen.
2025 Sobey Art Award Exhibition (until February 8, 2026): Through paintings, drawings, textiles, videos, sculptures, multidisciplinary installations and more, the six finalists for the Sobey Art Award capture the vitality of Canadian art while engaging with contemporary subjects.
Camera and the City (December 12, 2025, to March 15, 2026): This exhibition’s three sections—the city as movement and theatre, the city as idea and the city as community—feature photographs by Walker Evans, Diane Arbus, Leon Levenstein, Berenice Abbott, Robyn Collyer, Barbara Probst, Charles Gagnon, Fred Herzog, June Clark, Michel Lambeth, Jeff Thomas, Gordon Parks and Kwame Brathwaite, among others.
Winter Count: Embracing the Cold (until March 22, 2026): Featuring more than 150 works from Canada and abroad, this exhibition reflects on winter’s significant impact across diverse cultures and artistic styles.
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.
In Relief: The Work of Dora de Pédery-Hunt (1913–2008) (until April 12, 2026): During her five-decade career, Hungarian-Canadian artist Dora de Pédery-Hunt created more than 600 medals, including the 1967 Centennial medal and the Pearson Peace Medal. She also made the image of Queen Elizabeth II that appeared on Canadian coins between 1990 and 2003.
Focus Series (until June 2026): This ongoing collaboration between Library and Archives Canada and the National Gallery of Canada currently features early images of the Métis, photography from the first half of the twentieth century, Depression-era artworks, and documentary photographs by Pamela Harris of community life in Taloyoak, Nunavut (then Spence Bay, NWT) in the early 1970s.
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa
Art of a Good Death (until January 11, 2026): The Art of a Good Death features works by six artists who participated in a national competition to translate the academic literature on a “good death” into art.
Hallways of Hope (until January 11, 2026): Working alongside local artist Christopher Griffin, patients at Bruyère Health’s Centretown site created these vivid, large-scale paintings.
Grotto: The Bill Staubi Collection (until February 8, 2026): Grotto showcases a selection of artworks that Bill Staubi donated to the Ottawa Art Gallery (OAG) in 2024. The exhibition highlights Staubi’s support for queer artists and his commitment to Ottawa’s contemporary art scene.
Endless Becomings: Explorations in Contemporary Art (until March 15, 2026): This show features 11 contemporary artists—Aylin Abbasi, Annie Bérubé, Armand Diansambu, Elaine Diguer, Sophie El-Assaad, Emily Escoffery, Lea Hamilton, Sarah Hughes, Éric Mailloux, Shiva Nasiri and Leigha Stiles—who span generations, disciplines and cultural perspectives.
Chickadees and Flowers (until April 13, 2026): This is a digitized version of a birch bark biting artwork created by Indigenous artist Mairi Brascoupé. This ancient technique involves using one’s teeth to bite images into very thin pieces of birchbark.
Permanent exhibitions include Brockville’s Commercial and Industrial Past, and Brockville’s River Story.
Kingston
Agnes Etherington Art Centre
A Smile Split by the Stars (until December 20, 2025; offsite at the Tett Centre): This installation is a collaborative narration of nourbeSe philip’s poem, “Meditations on the Declension of Beauty by the Girl with the Flying Cheek-bones.”
Spirits of the Land (until December 20, 2025; offsite at the Stauffer Library at Queen’s University): This series of acrylic paintings on canvas by Indigenous artists and life partners, Jaylene Cardinal and Dakota Ward, evoke humans’ spiritual connections with the land, water, sky and all living beings on Earth.
Hotline: Posters from the Trellis HIV & Community Care Collection (until January 18, 2025; offsite at 207 Stuart Street, Kingston): Hotline features over 40 posters produced by public services, community groups and pharmaceutical companies, from the very local to the international, from the late 1980s to 2010s. The posters were used in relation to HIV/AIDS awareness, 2SLGBTQ+ activism, sex positivity, community support and health promotion.
Sandra Brewster: Judith Brown (Blur #6) (until July 10, 2026; offsite on an exterior wall at 68 Brock Street, Kingston): Kingston leader and mentor Judith Brown passed away in October 2024 at the age of 81. In her honour, the Agnes and artist Sandra Brewster have remounted Brewster’s 2019 portrait of Brown. Paying tribute to the joy and enduring presence of Black people in Kingston, the portrait was part of a commissioned series of blurred portraits of influential community members.
Echoes of Devotion (until 2026; offsite on the east wall of Mac-Corry Hall at Queen’s University): 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.
Montreal
Come back soon for details on a selection of exhibitions happening in Montreal. In the meantime, you can check the list on the MTL Museums website.
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.
