Plan your visit to CLAY, offering a seasonal menu of fresh local fare in one of the city's most beautiful spaces. Try our newly-launched spring menu today!
Ai Weiwei is one of the world’s most influential artists and human rights activists, and one of China’s most formidable critics. Ai Weiwei: Unbroken features a selection of the artist's most iconic ceramics, and marks the international debut of new work. See it before it closes on June 9!
SMASH: Nourish is a night of bold artwork, delicious cuisine, refreshing drinks, and invigorating experiences. The Gardiner Museum Young Patron Circle's annual art party sold out last year, so get your tickets early!
The Gardiner Museum is among the few museums in the world focused on ceramics, and is one of the most important specialty museums internationally. It houses approximately 4,000 objects, including European porcelain, ceramics from the Ancient Americas, Chinese porcelain, Japanese porcelain, and contemporary ceramics. Search the collection online!
Everyone can love clay! Become a Friend at one of the world’s great specialty museums and enjoy the benefits, including unlimited admission, invitations to exhibition previews and special events, discounts on lectures and clay classes, and more.
December 12-19, 2013
The Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic and the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art have partnered to raise awareness about violence against women and girls through an exhibition of clay works created over a period of 12-weeks within a healing expressive arts group. Ten women participated in the Gardiner Expressive Arts Group, which is a program of the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic that is run each year from September to December. Art therapist Suzanne Thomson, and artist Susan Low-Beer facilitate the Gardiner group. This year, group participants were asked to reflect on the following lines from a poem by Adrienne Rich, “Spirit like water moulded by unseen stone.” The intent was for each of the women to respond to Rich’s words by sculpting in clay their unique experiences of trauma. The result of their explorations will culminate in an exhibition at the Gardiner Museum entitled A Space for all Voices. The exhibition will run at the Gardiner Museum from December 12 through December 19, 2013. The opening night Reception will take place at the Gardiner Museum on December 12, 2013 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Last year the Barbra Schlifer Clinic and the Gardiner Museum celebrated their decade-long partnership by collaborating on a 10th anniversary retrospective exhibition called Transformation by Fire: Women Overcoming Violence Through Clay. The Gardiner Museum recently received the Award of Excellence in Exhibitions for Transformation by Fire: Women Overcoming Violence Through Clay by the Ontario Museum Association (OMA).
I am finding my voice through the gift of creativity
Sharing my story, I reclaim my power
I was born to please my father’s tribe
Phoenix rises from the ashes
Giving voice to something that is beyond words
From fragments to whole
Celebrating the immensity of human experience
We are but many voices, with different perspectives and experiences
We come together as a community with respect
Transforming our lives through the transformation of clay
Freeing our spirits to experience art
Daring the deep
Willingness to cross over
Sharing our journeys in recreating our resilience
The Barbra Schlifer Clinic: is a specialized clinic for women experiencing violence. The Clinic assists over 5,000 women a year to build lives free from violence through counselling, legal representation and language interpretation. To learn more about the Clinic and the services it offers, please visit schliferclinic.com