Pickle Underground

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Multi-disciplinary non-profit organization showcasing Ukrainian art and artists working in Canada

10/09/2026

A few more moments from the Opening Weekend of The Weight of Hair.

After months of preparation, it was wonderful to finally see the exhibition come to life with artists, conversations, and visitors filling The Highbrow.

Thank you to everyone who joined us, shared their thoughts, asked questions, and helped make this opening so special.

The Weight of Hair is now open, and we look forward to welcoming more of you in the coming months.

🎥 Video by Anna Kinoart ❤️

10/01/2026

Meet the artists behind The Weight of Hair.

Join us for an informal conversation about their practices, the works in the exhibition, and the stories behind them.

This Opening Weekend at The Highbrow.

See you there!
Registration - link in bio

09/29/2026

What happens when artists get to talk about the work beyond what fits on a gallery label?

As part of the Opening Weekend of The Weight of Hair, join artists Asma Sultana and Roksolana Uhryniuk for two informal conversations moderated by Anna Pidgorna.

Rather than formal artist talks or prepared presentations, these will be open, conversational evenings — a chance to hear directly from the artists about their practices, the works in the exhibition, and some of the experiences and questions behind them.
There will be questions, stories, probably a few unexpected turns — and space for questions from the audience too.

📅 Friday, October 2 · 7 pm
Artist Talk + Reception

📅 Saturday, October 3 · 6 pm
Artist Conversation + Opening Reception

📍 The Highbrow · New Westminster
Registration required · Admission by optional donation

🔗Space is limited → link in bio

09/25/2026

What will you hear at Between Shadow and Light?

This entirely Canadian program brings together works by five contemporary composers, including several with connections to British Columbia.

Moving between acoustic and electronic sound, the program features music by Linda Catlin Smith, Anna Höstman, Chiyoko Szlavnics, Ben Wylie, and Ukrainian-Canadian composer and Pickle Underground founder Anna Pidgorna.

Much of the music on the program was written at Ilana Waniuk and Cheryl Duvall’s invitation, growing out of relationships with composers they have worked with over many years. Through these ongoing collaborations, composers and performers find points of resonance and develop a shared musical understanding.

PROGRAM

LINDA CATLIN SMITH
With Their Shadows Long

ANNA HÖSTMAN
Lattice
Sointula

ANNA PIDGORNA
The Child, Bringer of Light
A Pärtian Meditation on an Invented Folksong

CHIYOKO SZLAVNICS
Constellations I–III

BEN WYLIE
Acousmonium III

🎵 Between Shadow and Light · Guest Salon
📅 Sunday, September 27
⏰ 3:00 PM

📍 The Highbrow
2–1019 Third Ave, New Westminster, BC

🔗 Registration → link in bio

09/23/2026

Roksolana Uhryniuk is a multidisciplinary artist working with performance, video, installation, drawing, and ready-made. Her art emerges from silence and observation — from the ability to capture what might otherwise remain unseen. She draws attention to the overlooked: everyday gestures, materials, and rituals that carry echoes of the past.

She explores how personal experience intersects with collective memory, and how subtle gestures, domestic actions, or words can embody traces of trauma.

After emigrating to Canada, her practice took on new dimensions — themes of adaptation, alienation, and the loss of connection to one’s context emerged. While her artistic language remains deeply rooted in Ukraine, she engages in a broader dialogue about loss, continuity, memory, and survival.

Alongside her artistic practice, Uhryniuk works as a curator. Her curatorial practice grows directly out of her artistic work, carrying the same attention to gesture, material, space, and subtle, often invisible tensions into the exhibition as a whole.

In The Weight of Hair, Uhryniuk works both as curator and participating artist.

THE WEIGHT OF HAIR — OPENING WEEKEND
📅 October 2–4, 2026
📍 The Highbrow · New Westminster, BC

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2
💬 7 pm · Reception + Artist Talk
Join participating artists for a conversation, audience Q&A and informal reception.
Registration required · Optional donation

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3
🕐 11 am–5 pm · Open House
🕐 1 pm & 3 pm · Curator-Led Tours
💬 6 pm · Opening Reception & Artist Conversation
Registration required · Optional donation

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4
🕐 11 am–5 pm · Open House
🕐 12 pm, 2 pm & 4 pm · Curator-Led Tours

🔗 Opening Weekend registration → link in bio

09/22/2026

Three days. Seven artists. One Opening Weekend 👉

The Weight of Hair opens October 2–4 at The Highbrow.

Artist conversations, receptions, curator-led tours, open visiting hours — swipe through for the full schedule →

📍Registration for evening events → link in bio

09/21/2026

Olha Skliarska is a visual artist and ceramist born in Sambir, Ukraine, and based in Poznań, Poland, since 2017. Working mainly with performance art, video, visual poetry and drawing, her practice explores human identity and belonging, discrimination and sensitive groups, the psychology of human behaviour, and questions of private and public space.

Since 2019, Skliarska has been developing Body Extended, an ongoing area of research focused on the evolution of meanings that emerge when objects and spaces are integrated with the human body. Alongside her interest in corporeality, hair has also become a recurring subject in her artistic practice. Her work with hair has been discussed by art historian Marta Smolińska in the essay Unkempt Communication. Hairy (II)Legibility as an Embodied and Affective Strategy of Contemporary Art.

Skliarska’s work has been presented at contemporary art exhibitions and performance festivals in Poland and internationally. She is a member of the performance groups Zabih (Ukraine) and Zapora (Ukraine/Poland), and since 2022 has also run Skliarska Ceramic, creating ceramics at the intersection of design and art. She holds degrees from the Lviv National Academy of Arts and the University of Arts in Poznań and studied at KASK School of Arts in Ghent through the Erasmus+ program.

HE WEIGHT OF HAIR — OPENING WEEKEND
📅 October 2–4, 2026
📍 The Highbrow · New Westminster, BC

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2
💬 7 pm · Reception + Artist Talk
Join participating artists for a conversation, audience Q&A and informal reception.
Registration required · Optional donation

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3
🕐 11 am–5 pm · Open House
🕐 1 pm & 3 pm · Curator-Led Tours
💬 6 pm · Opening Reception & Artist Conversation
Registration required · Optional donation

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4
🕐 11 am–5 pm · Open House
🕐 12 pm, 2 pm & 4 pm · Curator-Led Tours

🔗 Opening Weekend registration → link in bio

09/20/2026

Olexandra Pavlovska is an artist based in Kyiv, Ukraine.
For the past six years, her practice has focused on creating energetic paintings. She describes herself as an artist-magician, working by reading and translating information into visual form. For Pavlovska, art is a way of exploring the inner world, searching for meaning and creating a connection between herself and the world.

Earlier in her practice, Pavlovska worked extensively with photography as a tool to examine her own fears. A central theme of her research was loneliness—loneliness in a crowd, in relationships, within a family and within one’s own body. She was particularly interested in how modern forms of communication affect sincerity, empathy and our ability to connect with one another.

Through photographing people, communication itself became part of her process. Pavlovska describes the connection with her subjects as an essential part of portrait-making—an encounter that helped both artist and model overcome the fear of contact with strangers.

Her work has been presented through solo and group exhibitions, photography festivals and art residencies in Ukraine and internationally.

“WHEN ART BECOMES PRESENCE.”

HE WEIGHT OF HAIR — OPENING WEEKEND
📅 October 2–4, 2026
📍 The Highbrow · New Westminster, BC

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2
💬 7 pm · Reception + Artist Talk
Join participating artists for a conversation, audience Q&A and informal reception.
Registration required · Optional donation

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3
🕐 11 am–5 pm · Open House
🕐 1 pm & 3 pm · Curator-Led Tours
💬 6 pm · Opening Reception & Artist Conversation
Registration required · Optional donation

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4
🕐 11 am–5 pm · Open House
🕐 12 pm, 2 pm & 4 pm · Curator-Led Tours

🔗 Opening Weekend registration → link in bio

09/18/2026

We’re excited to be part of the 23rd Annual New West Cultural Crawl! New West Cultural Crawl

For more than two decades, the New West Cultural Crawl has been bringing artists and audiences together across New Westminster. What began in 2003 with just eight venues has grown into a free, city-wide celebration of the arts, with artist studios, galleries and cultural spaces opening their doors to thousands of visitors from across Metro Vancouver.

Presented by Arts New West, this year’s Cultural Crawl takes place October 3 & 4, from 11 am to 5 pm. For two days, you can move through the city at your own pace, discover new spaces, meet artists, and experience the range of creative practices that make up New Westminster’s arts community.

We’re very happy that The Highbrow / Pickle Underground is one of the participating venues this year — and especially happy to be opening The Weight of Hair during the Crawl weekend.

📆October 3 & 4, 2026
🕰️11 am–5 pm
📍Across New Westminster
❣️Free · Family-friendly

Come explore the city, visit the artists and spaces around us — and stop by The Highbrow along the way.

See you on the Crawl!

Address

New Westminster, BC

Website

http://pickleunderground.com/

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