The Globe and Mail - Kate Taylor Columns

A living, breathing gallery with an argument to make

Tue, 19 May 2009 05:57 EDT

Schad Gallery brings the ROM's life-sciences collections back out of storage and into the core of the old building

A living, breathing gallery with an argument to make

Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Consider the dodo, that joke of a creature, symbol of natural selection's nastier realities. Can the flightless bird killed off by humans in the 17th century be reinvented as an icon not of its own stupidity, but of ours? The Royal Ontario Museum is going to try: The Toronto museum is one of the few institutions in the world with a dodo skeleton in its collection, and that specimen is now on display in the new Schad Gallery of Biodiversity. There it stands, alongside a stuffed example of the ivory-billed woodpecker and a skeleton of the South Island giant moa, as a dark warning in a permanent exhibition devoted to both the diversity of life on the planet and its fragility.

Artists balk at consultation process

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00 EDT

The National Gallery of Canada is asking ''Can we talk?'' but a select group of Canadian photographers is answering no.The topic for discussion is the future of the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, an affiliated institution which the gallery has housed since a leaking roof forced it out of its own building on Ottawa's Rideau Canal in 2006. The National Gallery has invited 80 photographers to privately offer their opinions on the subject by e-mail or phone, but 18 who were invited and another 36 who weren't have signed a letter questioning the consultation's format.

Splashy, interactive - and falling apart

Sat, 16 May 2009 00:00 EDT

In the storerooms of the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John, the silk flags once carried by the 104th Regiment of Foot - as the New Brunswickers marched all the way to Upper Canada to fight the War of 1812 - are quietly disintegrating. In British Columbia, staff at the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel in Cranbrook dream of the day they raise the money for a building to shelter four unique luxury trains that currently sit outdoors, where temperature fluctuations are taking their toll on walnut-panelled interiors, stained-glass windows and wool carpeting.

Splashy, interactive � and falling apart

Fri, 15 May 2009 09:59 EDT

As museums focus on gizmo-packed displays and on-line archiving, art conservators say Canada's cultural history is deteriorating fast

The opacity of hope

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00 EDT

FIERCE LIGHT: WHEN SPIRIT MEETS ACTIONWritten and directedby Velcrow RipperClassification: PG**So all that stuff about hope, is that for real or just so much airy-fairy, new age B.S.? That is not the question asked by Velcrow Ripper in his new documentary Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action. The Vancouver documentarian knows where he stands on the question of hope and he is decidedly in favour. But it is the question those of us who are not spiritually inclined may bring to this film about the marriage of spirituality to political protest. And it is not one that gets answered in a documentary that, for all the inspiring leaders it interviews and powerful demos it films, is mainly preaching to the choir.

The opacity of hope

Thu, 14 May 2009 16:30 EDT

The opacity of hope

Truth, lies and videoconferencing

Fri, 8 May 2009 02:41 EDT

Truth, lies and videoconferencing

HOT DOCS / MINI REVIEWS

Fri, 8 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Toronto's Hot Docs film festival wraps up on Sunday. Selected mini reviews, rated on a system of 0 to 4 stars, by Guy Dixon, Liam Lacey and Kate Taylor