Oakville Ontario L6J 1L6
Canada
Oakville Galleries presents Ali Cherri’s inaugural solo exhibition in Canada, alongside The Ship of Tolerance by Ilya & Emilia Kabakov and the avant-garde film festival, Sunset Kino.
Ali Cherri: To Fall, Patiently
Opens on Saturday, June 13, and runs through October 3, 2026
Gairloch Gardens & Centennial Square
Ali Cherri (b. 1976, Beirut) is a Paris-based artist with three decades of artistic practice spanning across film, performance, sculpture, drawing, and installations. Awarded the Silver Lion at the 2022 Venice Biennale, and exhibited in leading museums around the world, Ali Cherri presents films, sculptures and watercolour paintings in both our galleries as well as in Gairloch Gardens.
Highly influenced by the Lebanese postwar art scene, Ali Cherri’s complex body of work interrogates how histories and currencies of political violence resonate through generations as well as physical and cultural landscapes, objects and places.
At the Gairloch Gallery, Ali Cherri presents a series of sculptures, assembled elegantly between different materials, each a hybrid involving ancient artifacts found by the artist in auctions or marketplaces. Adjacent to the sculptures is a series of watercolour paintings and the film Of Men and Gods and Mud, which explores the relationship between humans, labour, and the environment in northern Sudan. Two sculptures by Ali Cherri will be installed outdoors in the sculpture garden of Gairloch Gardens: The bronze sculpture The Tree of Life re-interprets ancient Assyrian reliefs of a sacred tree, while the neon sculpture Les (Sur)Vivants poetically references the perils of surviving catastrophe. As part of our summer program, Ali Cherri also presents two evenings of his films as part of Sunset Kino.
At the Centennial Gallery, the artist presents the film The Watchman. Set in Cyprus, the film features a soldier on watch at the edge of no-man’s land between the Greek Cypriot south and the Turkish Cypriot north. As with much of Cherri’s work, the film concerns itself with questions of borders and the challenges they enact upon ideas of sovereignty, identity, and geopolitical realities.
The rich tapestry of Ali Cherri’s work oscillates between history and memory, realities of violence and residues of trauma, political spectacle and the stuff of dreams, ancient objects and myth and sensuality, death and survival, fragility and resilience, materiality and mortality, and museal knowledge and its ruins. The exhibition is supported by TD Bank Group.
Ilya & Emilia Kabakov: The Ship of Tolerance
Continues until September 30, 2026
Gairloch Gardens
After workshops with over 3000 children on ideas of tolerance and humanitarianism, new sails are being raised on The Ship of Tolerance. These painted sails weave together diverse voices into a visual narrative of hope, inspiring audiences to reflect on tolerance and our shared humanity. This anti-war sculpture rejects deference to hegemonic power and speaks to better, alternative futures, which we are free to create.
Presented in partnership with the Ilya and Emilia Kabakov Foundation and the National Gallery of Canada. The National Gallery of Canada’s National Engagement initiative is generously supported by Michael Nesbitt, with additional funding from the National Gallery of Canada Foundation. The Ship of Tolerance has recently received both the Visit Oakville Tourism Award and the RTO3 Regional Partnership & Collaboration Award.
Sunset Kino
June 25 to July 16, 2026
Gairloch Gardens
Founded by Séamus Kealy in Salzburg in 2017, Sunset Kino is the world’s only transnational, outdoor, avant-garde film festival. Commencing at sunset, audiences experience programs of artists’ films and videos. This year's theme "In Ruins" is inspired by Ali Cherri’s exhibition and features films by Ali Cherri and programming by Séamus Kealy, Jenifer Papararo and Rinaldo Walcott.
About Oakville Galleries
Oakville Galleries is a contemporary art museum presenting international and Canadian artists. Housed in a unique lakeside mansion and park as well as a white cube gallery downtown, Oakville Galleries is one of Canada’s leading contemporary art institutions. The Executive Director is Séamus Kealy. Supported by The Town of Oakville, Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council, sponsors, patrons and members.
