The 2026 to 2027 year has a lot in store for the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG), particularly when it comes to exhibitions organized as part of VAG's Centre for Global Asias. This impressive display of work includes what will be the largest exhibition of Iranian art in Canada, artistic work from Hong Kong, and moving-image installations by Stephanie Comilang, a Filipina Canadian artist.
The Gallery's Centre for Global Asias is a platform with the Vancouver Art Gallery that is dedicated to spotlighting the work of artists from the local and global Asian diaspora. The Centre for Global Asias does this work by putting on exhibitions, public talks, film screenings, and performances. They also organize partnerships with other cultural institutions and visiting scholars.
The exhibitions speak to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Sustainable Cities and Communities for their focus on sustaining the artistic practices of the artists' work on display.
Modern Iran and the Avant-Gardes, 1948-78 is the first upcoming exhibition in this series, running from December 11, 2026 to May 2, 2027. Guest curator Pantea Haghighi uses Modern Iran and the Avant-Gardes to highlight a thirty-year period of rapid modernization in Iranian history that resulted in new artistic styles and works. The period of time in Iranian art history that Haghighi chooses to highlight begins just after the Azerbaijan Crisis of 1946, stretching to the coup of 1953, and finishes with works produced during and before the 1978 Islamic revolution. VAG's press release about the exhibition highlights that following the 1953 coup, artists tended to work between Iranian and Western modes of production.
Made in Hong Kong: From the Collection and Stephanie Comilang: Search for Life both arrive at VAG in mid-February. Made in Hong Kong runs from February 12 to September 12, 2027, while Stephanie Comilang runs from Feburary 12 to May 16, 2027.
Made in Hong Kong features a large collection of pieces, approximately 50 works by 35 artists, many for whom this is their first time exhibiting their work in Canada. The exhibition includes two new commissions from Greg Girard, Howie Tsui and Lam Tung Pang, artists based in Vancouver. All together, the Hong Kong art from across six decades is displayed "loosely chronologically" according to a press release from the VAG.
Stephanie Comilang: Search for Life will see Gallery visitors tightening our scope to one artist's work: an immersive moving-image piece through two multi-channel video installations titled Search for Life I (2024) and Search for Life II (2025). The first Search for Life considers Spanish conquistadors' shipping routes after the colonization of the Philippines and Filipino seafarers. The second Search for Life considers the history and industrialization of pearl diving in the Persian Gulf, the Philippines and China.
All three exhibitions consider how national and artistic or cultural identities shift and evolve with the impact of colonization, migration, and modernization. Though varied in the artists that are highlighted and geographic origins of the works, each collection is tied together by the thread of change.