Visit Virtual Tours of my exhibit and experience design work for the Museum of Surrey.
Spotlight on Surrey: The 'Surrey on Screen' exhibition
I led ideation, strategy and development of a major exhibition highlighting Surrey’s growing film industry, reframing local creative identity through storytelling and community engagement. After pitching the concept, I built partnerships with the City of Surrey Film Office, Heritage Collection, local BIA, and collaborated with major studios, including Warner Bros. Discovery & Paramount.
The exhibition combined archival artifacts, original media, and interactive learning elements. Highlights included more than 50 objects from the Warner Bros. Archive, a custom reel of locally filmed productions, and one feature item from Paramount - Jim Carrey’s Sonic the Hedgehog costume, secured through complex, last-minute negotiations. Working with my team, we also developed hands-on experiences such as a green screen activity and produced original video interviews with diverse industry professionals.
The project strengthened industry relationships, elevated awareness of Surrey as a film hub, and created an engaging, accessible learning experience for visitors.
The People's Museum: A Mural Wall Project
Upon joining the Museum of Surrey, I noticed the vast 45-by-30-foot atrium wall presented an untapped opportunity. I felt it could be used to align with one of the museum's goals - to create "wow" experiences. The overall image is of a local river, inspired by an Indigenous Elder's words about rivers as places of connection. He also said rivers were the place of arrival for newcomers, and the custom was to ask permission of the resident Nation when arriving at a new place. The image symbolically requests permission to the three land-based Nations of Surrey, and connects the museum's 2 levels. It leads visitors to second floor galleries, including the Nations led Indigenous Hall.
I proposed, sourced suppliers and content, and oversaw the development of this large-scale photo mural. It is designed to reflect the community it serves - the people of the museum. The mural is made up of 44,000 individual portraits of the people of Surrey.
This project supported the museum’s new mission to be "The Best People Museum In Canada" and required aligning stakeholders, sourcing and negotiating with an international designer in the Netherlands, coordinating a community-wide photo collection, and partnering with a local printer (Uno Digital) to deliver an unprecedented technically complex installation. The final mural, is composed of more than 44,000 contemporary and archival images. It blends storytelling, representation, and interactive discovery. Local people are literally seen IN the museum.
The mural has become a signature feature of the museum. It drew more than 10,000 visitors at reopening and continues to foster a strong sense of belonging and engagement within the community.
Unearthing Ancient Peru: Nickle Galleries
What began as a curatorial role evolved into end-to-end coordination of a complex, multidisciplinary exhibition and learning experience. I led key aspects of development, including content strategy, stakeholder alignment, and production across exhibit theme, interpretive content, exhibition labels, audio, video, publication, and other physical media in this bilingual exhibit.
I shaped and wrote exhibition content, produced multimedia learning elements such as an audio tour and original video, and coordinated external partners including designers, model builders, and audio tour specialists. I also helped develop the educational programming and advised on retail and merchandise to extend the learning experience beyond the gallery.
In collaboration with international partners, I created and negotiated the exhibition agreement with Peru and later supported legal and operational planning for a national tour. The project included fundraising, a high-profile opening attended by Canadian and Peruvian diplomats, and a bilingual publication. I coordinated contributor agreements, design and production. I also contributed an essay to the publication on the ethical and cultural consequences of the looting of artifacts.
This work strengthened my ability to design inclusive, multimodal learning experiences and manage complex, cross-cultural initiatives from concept through national distribution.
Forming and Launching The Founders' Gallery
A case study in building a cultural program from the ground up. This project tracks the transformation of a vision into a 5000 sq. ft. operational reality, The Founders Gallery of Art and Heritage at The Military Museums in Calgary, Alberta. This art gallery on it's inception, pioneered a storytelling model uniting fine art, artifacts, and archival material to connect military and art audiences.
Seconded from the University of Calgary, I was tasked to oversee the development of the institution’s art program from concept to full operation, including advising on the build and facility requirements.
Working largely independently in the early phase, I defined the gallery’s mission, brand identity, policies, and programming framework while hiring and coordinating technical staff and establishing operational standards. This included developing collections and loan procedures, designing storage and loading dock, and advocating for the facility to comply with Category “A” museum standards required for major national loans.
The inaugural exhibition, Art in the Service of War: The Emergent Group of Seven, demonstrated a storytelling approach that united fine art, artifacts, and archival material. Significant works by iconic Group of Seven artists were presented alongside objects and archival material drawn from each of the regimental army collections, Archive, Navy, and Air Force museums within The Military Museums. This was done intentionally to bridge art and military history audiences and to amplify the lived experience of the war artists and the works they created.
The premiere exhibition responded to a lead donor’s vision that the gallery open with Group of Seven art, which I leveraged into an opportunity to create a broader narrative exploring the lens of these artists as official war artists, where their later style developed.
The exhibition was sourced through a major loan partnership I negotiated with the Canadian War Museum, including the loan of rare works on paper by the artists later to become The Group of Seven, which had not been on display since 1924 as part of Lord Beaverbrook’s First World War art program documenting the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
This exhibit later informed my published conference paper, "The New Triple A – Art, Archive and Artefact at The
Military Museums: Lessons and Implications from a Converged Environment" by Colleen Sharpe and John Wright at the Fourth Annual Conference of the Arts, Venice, July 28-31 2009.
My final act as Curator was in making a request, proposal and negotiation with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to secure a World Trade Center artifact for The Military Museums, commemorating Canadians lost on September 11. This significant addition to the museum was made possible through the vision, advisement, and recommendation of Canadian war artist Dick Averns, who carried the project through to final installation.