Tag Archives: Ingenium (Canada s Museums of Science and Innovation)

Art meets science with Faith Fyles, courtesy of the Ottawa Art Gallery and Ingenium (Canada’s science & technology museums)

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A March 26, 2026 notice from Ingenium, Canada’s museums of science and innovation (comprising the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, and the Canada Science and Technology Museum) received via email and available for a limited time here lists some upcoming attractions, Note: I am highlighting only one of the listed events in addition to the farm event listed first,

Hop into spring at Easter at the farm!

Celebrate the joys of spring at Easter at the farm at the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum! From April 3 to 6, 2026, the barns come alive with family-friendly activities, hands-on learning, and plenty of adorable newborn animals.

Meet fluffy chicks, ducklings, lambs, and other spring arrivals while discovering how farmers care for animals during this busy season. Enjoy interactive egg-themed demonstrations and experiments, explore the journey from cacao to chocolate (with sweet samples along the way), and take part in crafts and games designed for all ages. Guests can also groom a calf, attend special animal presentations, and relax with bilingual family movie screenings throughout the day.

It’s the perfect way to spend the Easter weekend — combining outdoor fun, agricultural discovery, and unforgettable moments with the cutest residents on the farm.

Advanced tickets are required, and this popular event often sells out. Special event pricing applies.

Don’t miss this springtime family tradition!

Get tickets

…

Art meets science in Faith Fyles: In Full Bloom

Faith Fyles: In Full Bloom is a new exhibition at the Ottawa Art Gallery developed in partnership with Ingenium. It explores the life and work of Faith Fyles, the first woman appointed as a botanist with Canada’s Department of Agriculture. Fyles combined botanical research with artistic illustration, transforming close observation of plants into both scientific knowledge and visual expression. Contemporary artists expand on her legacy through works inspired by beadwork, plant dyes, photography, and agricultural histories, highlighting women’s ongoing relationships with the natural world.

Learn more

Here’s more about Faith Fyles and the exhibition, from the Ottawa Art Gallery/Galerie d’art d’Ottawa (OAG/GAO)’s About page for the exhibition, Note: A link has been removed,

Faith Fyles: In Full Bloom

March 7, 2026 – September 27, 2026
Level 4

Faith Fyles, Barbara Brown, Deborah Margo, Marie-Jeanne Musiol, Susan Geraldine Taylor, Stephanie Tenasco, and Sarah Potter

This exhibition explores the intersection of art and science through the life and work of Faith Fyles (1875 – 1961), the first woman to be appointed as a botanist with Canada’s Department of Agriculture. The exhibition traces her distinctive dual careers at Ottawa’s Central Experimental Farm (CEF): first as a botanist and then as an artist, with both roles often merging in one project. Fyles collected botanical specimens, researched plant diseases and documented plants and fruits in several media and styles. Fyles navigated a gendered bureaucracy while creating and sharing knowledge about Canadian agriculture during its rapid expansion in the early twentieth century. 

Fyles’ legacy is reinterpreted through lenses of land, labour, and scientific craft in contemporary works presented throughout the exhibition: Stephanie Tenasco celebrates Algonquin beadwork traditions and enduring relationships with the natural world; Deborah Margo’s dye experiments are based on the histories of women’s knowledge-making and deep connections to plant life; while Marie-Jeanne Musiol’s Kirlian photographs propose a new kind of herbarium; Barbara Brown brings visibility to the often-overlooked labour of women farmers engaged in sustainable practices across the region; and Susan Geraldine Taylor’s hand-coloured prints of the CEF highlight its centennial and advocate for the protection of its landscapes.  

The works by these artists expand and add complexity to Fyles’ legacy. The works reveal the many ways women continue to observe, document and care for the natural world. 

This exhibition is a unique collaboration between the Ottawa Art Gallery and Ingenium-Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation. Drawing on Ingenium’s large horticultural art and artefacts collection, the exhibition team launched a research project that has shed new light on Faith Fyles’s life and career—and uncovered previously undocumented works.

Curators: Rebecca Basciano, Meghan Ho, Dr. William Knight, Dr. Cindy Stelmackowich
Curatorial Coordination: Erin Bruce
Curatorial Research Assistant: Casarina Hocevar
Exhibition Design: Barbara Suhr
Graphic Design: Leah Ross and Mathieu Kirchmayer
Technical Team: Stephanie Germano, Dan Austin, Rob Keefe, Mark Garland, Neil Hossack, Fen Prior-Delahanty, Esma Gardner Jones, Sabrina Ferrari, and Evalyn Shields. 
Editors: Matt Harrison, Véronique Couillard
French Translation: Marie-Camille Lalande 
Photo Documentation: House of Common Studio

Institutional Lenders and Partners:
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Government of Canada
Canadian Agriculture Library
Canadian Museum of Nature
Ingenium – Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation
Library and Archives Canada
National Film Board of Canada
Royal Botanical Gardens (Canada)
University of Guelph

Sponsored by:

           

This exhibition was also realized with the support of the City of Ottawa, the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.  

A March 25, 2026 AGO/BAO What’s on posting provides more information on Faith Fyles, Note: A link has been removed,

For decades, the work of Faith Fyles, a scientific artist based in Ottawa, quietly shaped Canada’s agricultural science. Now, in a partnership between Ingenium – Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation and the Ottawa Art Gallery (OAG), Faith Fyles: In Full Bloom brings renewed attention to Canada’s first woman botanist and a pioneering scientific artist whose career was rooted at Ottawa’s Central Experimental Farm.

Untitled [Faith Fyles at her easel], c.1930, photograph. Courtesy of Vanessa Nugent.

Arriving at the Farm in 1910 as a seed analyst, Fyles became the first woman in Canada’s Civil Service to hold a scientific position when she was promoted to assistant botanist. At a time when few women were permitted to pursue scientific careers, she conducted fieldwork across the country—often travelling alone—collecting and identifying hundreds of plant specimens for the National Herbarium. Her research ranged from poisonous plants affecting farming to germination experiments on wild rice along the Rideau River, where she identified and named a previously undocumented fungus species.

In 1920, Fyles broke new ground again when she became the first artist appointed to the Central Experimental Farm’s Horticulture Division. There, she produced hundreds of meticulous paintings of apples, berries, and other plant varieties developed in Ottawa’s experimental orchards. These works were not merely decorative illustrations; they were scientific tools, recording colour, form, and internal structure with precision so that new varieties could be studied, promoted, and shared with growers across the country. Today, her paintings form an extraordinary visual archive of Canadian agricultural innovation.

Faith Fyles, Bingo, 1921, watercolour, Ingenium. 1987.2378

Educated at McGill University under the mentorship of trailblazing botanist Carrie Derick, and having studied art in Paris and London, Fyles uniquely bridged scientific rigour and artistic skills. Her career unfolded during a period of rapid agricultural expansion in Canada, and her contributions helped shape both the scientific record and the visual culture of that era.

Faith Fyles: In Full Bloom not only revisits this remarkable Ottawa story but also places it in conversation with contemporary artists who expand and reinterpret her legacy.  Our next story will explore how their works explore themes of land, knowledge, and care for the natural world, reminding us that the relationship between art and science remains as vital today as it was in Fyles’ time.

This exhibition is a unique collaboration between the Ottawa Art Gallery and Ingenium-Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation. Drawing on Ingenium’s large horticultural art and artefacts collection, the exhibition team launched a research project that has shed new light on Faith Fyles’s life and career, and uncovered previously undocumented works.

The exhibition “Faith Fyles: In Full Bloom” runs at the Ottawa Art Gallery/Galerie d’art d’Ottawa (AGO/GAO) until September 27, 2026.

Adisokan: Winter Solstice 2020 and storytelling; a December 2020 event

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Ingenium (Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation) is hosting the second in a series of Indigenous Star Knowledge Symposia. (There’s a more comprehensive description of the series in my Sept. 18, 2020 posting, which also features the Fall Equinox event (the first in the series) and information about a traveling exhibit. )

Adisokan: Winter Solstice, Stars and Storytelling will be held on December 21, 2020 (from the event page),

December 21, 2020 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. EST

Adisokan is the Algonquin word for storytelling with special cultural meaning. Join us for stories about the stars from three Indigenous nations – Mapuche (Chile), Algonquin  (Quebec), and Dene (Northwest Territories). Indigenous teachings, spirit, language, world views and an exploration of the word and role of stories in Indigenous culture. 

Anita Tenasco, Kitigan Zibi, Quebec (Algonquin)

Joan Tenasco, Kitigan Zibi, Quebec (Algonquin)

Chris Canon, University of Alaska (with Dene partners in the NWT)

Yasmin Catricheo, Chile (Mapuche)

Moderated by Wilfred Buck, Ininew, Manitoba

Anita Tenasco is an Anishinabeg from Kitigan Zibi. She has a Bachelor’s degree in history and teaching from the University of Ottawa, as well as a First Nations leadership certificate from Saint Paul’s University, in Ottawa. She has also taken courses in public administration at ENAP (The University of Public Administration). In Kitigan Zibi, she has held various positions in the field of education and, since 2005, is director of education in her community.

Anita was an active participant in the Honouring Our Ancestors project, in which the Anishinabeg Nation of Kitigan Zibi, under Gilbert Whiteduck’s direction, was successful in the restitution of the remains of ancestors conserved at the Canadian Museum of History, in Gatineau. Anita also participated in the organizing of a conference on repatriation, in Kitigan Zibi, in 2005. She plays an important role in this research project.

http://nikanishk.ca/en/blog/project-participants/anita-tenasco-2/

Chris Cannon is a Ph.D. student in cultural anthropology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. His research interests are in Northern Dene (Athabaskan) language and culture with a particular emphasis on astronomical knowledge within and across Dene ethnolinguistic groups. He enjoys traveling the land with traditional knowledge bearers and has collaborated on several projects to transform his research into other materials and deliverables that are of greater use to Dene communities and the general public, including a poster-sized Gwich’in star chart (in press).

Arctic Research Consortium of the United States 

Yasmin Catricheo is the STEM Education Scholar at AUI’s Office of Education and Public Engagement. She is a physics educator from Chile, and of Mapuche origin. Yasmin is passionate about the teaching of science and more recently has focused in the area of astronomy and STEM. In her professional training she has taken a range of courses in science and science education, and researched the benefits of scientific argumentation in the physics classroom, earning a master’s degree in education from the University of Bío-Bío. Yasmín is also a member of the indigenous group “Mapu Trafun”, and she works closely with the Mapuche community to recover the culture and communicate the message of the Mapuche Worldview. In 2018 Yasmín was selected as the Chilean representative for Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassador Program (ACEAP) founded by NSF.

Associated Universities Inc.

Wilfred Buck is a member of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation. He obtained his B.Ed. & Post Bacc. from the University of Manitoba.

As an educator Wilfred has had the opportunity and good fortune to travel to South and Central America as well as Europe and met, shared and listened to Indigenous people from all over the world.

He is a husband, father of four, son, uncle, brother, nephew, story-teller, mad scientist, teacher, singer, pipe-carrier, sweat lodge keeper, old person and sun dance leader.
Researching Ininew star stories Wilfred found a host of information which had to be interpreted and analyzed to identify if the stories were referring to the stars. The journey began… The easiest way to go about doing this, he was told, was to look up. 

“The greatest teaching that was ever given to me, other than my wife and children, is the ability to see the humor in the world”…Wilfred Buck

https://acakwuskwun.com/

The registration page is here.