Weekly Message from Our Director and CEO, Stephan Jost

Hello Everyone,

AGO summer camps begin next week! It is great to see the counsellors and camp staff on-site and getting ready for sessions to begin. Our camps are very popular and often sell out in advance so if you know anyone who might be interested, tell them to check out https://ago.ca/learn/camps/summer-art-camp as soon as possible.

On Wednesday, we held our Annual General Meeting for all the members of the Gallery. I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again – we had a great year! THANK YOU everyone for knocking it out of the park on many levels – great programming, diverse exhibitions, extraordinary visitor welcome, a new park – all of which contributed to record-breaking attendance of 1 million +.

I had a good conversation with Audrey Hudson and Julie Crooks earlier this week about the internal Diversity & Inclusion staff group that has come together to focus on 6 upcoming exhibitions. I’d like to thank Audrey and Julie again for their leadership, and also the other staff members for stepping forward: Questine Francis (SVR); Jason Laudadio (LAS); Jessica Bright (Exhibitions); Tavia Fedoruk (Development); Michelle Noel (Facilities); Andrea Chan (Marketing); Marilyn Nazar (Library & Archives); Trish Popkin (Front-of-house); Andrew Muldoon (PSD); and Linda Lee (PP&L). Leadership Team members will join the group on a rotating basis. Later this month, Audrey and the group will offer an educational session on the newly installed Indigenous & Canadian galleries and Rebecca Belmore exhib Stay tuned for date options.

We are open on Monday – Canada Day! – we celebrate with the opening of the newly renovated J.S. McLean Centre for Indigenous & Canadian Art this Sunday. The focus on inclusion of Indigenous works is a very big moment for the AGO. The galleries look AMAZING! The crew worked very, very hard.

Enjoy the long weekend,

Stephan