Inside the Audain Art Museum: In Conversation with Dr. Curtis Collins

In this conversation, I speak with Dr. Curtis Collins, Executive Director of the Audain Art Museum in Whistler, British Columbia. Few museum directors have experienced Canada’s artistic and cultural life as broadly as Curtis Collins. Over more than three decades, he has led galleries, museums and arts institutions across six provinces and one territory—from Fredericton to Dawson City, from Regina to Whistler—while also teaching at universities across the country and helping shape major exhibitions, publications and public programs devoted to Canadian art. Curtis has led the Audain Art Museum since 2018 and now serves as its Executive Director. During a remarkable period of growth, he has overseen exhibitions including Wolves: The Art of Dempsey Bob, Curve! Women Carvers on the Northwest Coast, The Coast Mountains: Recent Works by Edward Burtynsky and Karin Bubaš: Garden of Shadows. He is also the co-author, with 7IDANsuu James Hart, of the recent publication 7IDANsuu James Hart: A Monumental Practice, the first publication devoted to Hart’s extraordinary career. In our conversation, we speak about these artists, exhibitions and his recent publication, as well as the Museum’s Tuesday Night Talks and his research for The Tlingit: Four Centuries of Art, a major exhibition planned for 2028. We also reflect on Curtis’s journey through museums across Canada and the many ways museums bring artists, ideas and audiences together.