Launching with an Opening Reception on July 17, Walter Phillips Gallery at Banff Centre presents new and recent works by Diane Borsato that celebrate the intimate and liberating possibilities of being in water, along with our shared right to clean, wild environments to swim in. New Family ARTventures events invite families and youth to drop in for creative artmaking.

BANFF, AB, JUNE 23, 2026 – Walter Phillips Gallery at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity is pleased to present Diane Borsato: A Clean Place to Swim, an exhibition that considers how watery sites might foster intimacy, solidarity, and belonging. Featuring video and photography, the exhibition brings together works related to the artist’s engagement with the subject over more than a decade, from the glacial waters of the Bow River to the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto, and to geothermally heated pools on the west coast of Iceland. 

Diane Borsato is an award-winning artist, writer, and educator known for her environmental and social art practices. She has worked closely with other artists and amateur naturalists to create the foraging and stargazing action called Terrestrial/Celestial, a performance of silence and stillness with one-hundred beekeepers called Your Temper, My Weather, and planted an orchard of rare apples as public art called ORCHARD, along with many other well-known projects and publications. 

In her newest exhibition, Diane Borsato: A Clean Place to Swim, is the work Pools (2014), a series of wide-lens, action-camera photographs documenting her family’s attempts to teach her child to swim in various public and natural pools across western Iceland. Related to this work is the new dual-channel video installation Swimming Lessons (Mom/Dad) (2026) in which Borsato is seen teaching her mother and father to swim in poignant scenes of support and struggle, recorded entirely underwater.

Also inspired by the unique choreographies of swimming lessons is the new work Holds, Floats, Strokes (2026), an edited collection of studio experiments led by Borsato with dancers Naishi Wang and Lukas Malkowski, based on the gestures and sensations inherent to learning to swim. 

Swimming With Mathematicians (2018), a piece created at Banff Centre, documents mathematicians from the Banff International Research Station (BIRS) swimming together with artists in the glacial Bow River during a heatwave, and invites ritualized repetition of the gesture indefinitely into the future.

Finally, the exhibition also includes the title works, A Clean Place to Swim (Ukrainians) (2025) and (Snow) (2026), two single-channel videos featuring a group of Ukrainian Canadians—some recent newcomers fleeing the Russian invasion—who meet weekly year-round at the West Humber Bay in Toronto, to swim in the lake. Regardless of the weather and contamination warnings, everyone encourages one another to dip into the freezing water. 

At once resistant to city norms and insistent on living, the group reminded the artist of Alexander Wilson’s line from his book The Culture of Nature, calling for an environment that we all deserve: one that must have “a clean place to swim”. 

Diane Borsato: A Clean Place to Swim

• Dates: July 18, 2026, to December 13, 2026
• Venue: Walter Phillips Gallery at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
• Address: 107 Tunnel Mountain Dr., Banff, Alberta
• Price: Free
• Hours: Wednesdays through Sundays, 12:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Public Events

• Opening Reception: Friday, July 17, 2026 | 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
• Exhibition Tour: Wednesday, August 19, 2026 | 5:30 p.m. 
  

This exhibition is made possible through the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Province of Alberta through Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

Family ARTventures

Walter Phillips Gallery at Banff Centre is thrilled to launch Family ARTventures, a youth and family program designed to connect the Bow Valley with meaningful access to contemporary art. Families and youth are invited to monthly workshops inspired by Banff Centre’s exhibitions and permanent collections, expanding cultural access to our community and inspiring creativity in one of Canada’s most unique artistic environments.

• Dates: July 11, August 8, September 12
• Time: 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
• Price: FREE

Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity acknowledges the generous support of TD Bank Group through TD Ready Commitment. We are proud to partner with an organization that shares our belief in supporting arts and culture events, initiatives, and organizations through the transformative power of creativity, education, and community connection.

Through the Family ARTventures program, TD is helping Banff Centre expand access to contemporary art to children, youth, and families in the Bow Valley, creating space for the next generation to engage with the arts.

The Family ARTventures Program is generously supported by:

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For photos, information, or interview requests, please contact:
 

Carly Maga                             
Director, Communications                         
Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity             
tel: +1.403.763.6210                
cell: +1.403.431.3423                
carly_maga@banffcentre.ca  

About Diane Borsato

Diane Borsato is an award-winning artist, writer, and educator who has worked closely with other artists and amateur naturalists, including coordinating a day-long foraging and stargazing event for amateur mushroomers and astronomers (Terrestrial/Celestial), creating a performance of silence and stillness with 100 beekeepers (Your Temper, My Weather), and planting a rare community apple orchard as public art (ORCHARD) along with many other multidisciplinary projects.

She has performed and exhibited across Canada at venues including the Art Gallery of Ontario, The Power Plant, and the Art Gallery of York University, Toronto; the Art Museum at the University of Toronto; Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity; the Esker Foundation, Calgary; the Vancouver Art Gallery; the National Art Centre, Ottawa; Fogo Island Arts and at the Toronto Biennial of Art; and internationally at galleries and museums around the world. She recently published Outdoor School: Contemporary Environmental Art (2021) co-edited with Amish Morrell, MUSHROOMING: The Joy of the Quiet Hunt (2022), and the artist book Snakes in the Library (2025) together with Alexandra Carter. Diane Borsato is also Associate Professor at the University of Guelph, where she teaches courses exploring social, site-responsive and environmental art practices. She lives and works in Toronto. 

About Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

Founded in 1933, Banff Centre is a post-secondary institution built upon an extraordinary legacy of excellence in artistic and leadership development. What started as a single course in drama has grown to become a global organization leading in arts, culture, and creative decision-making across dozens of disciplines, from the fine arts to Indigenous Wise Practices. From our home in the stunning Canadian Rocky Mountains, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity aims to move everyone who attends our campus—artists, leaders, thinkers, and audiences—to unleash their creative potential and realize their unique contribution to build an innovative, inspiring future through education, performances, convenings, and public outreach. banffcentre.ca

About Walter Phillips Gallery

Walter Phillips Gallery is exclusively committed to the production, presentation, collection, and analysis of contemporary art and curatorial practice. For contemporary artists, particularly those engaged in alternative forms of practice, Walter Phillips Gallery remains an essential and principal site where art is presented to an audience for critical reception. banffcentre.ca/walter-phillips-gallery 

Banff Centre
107 Tunnel Mountain Drive
Banff, Alberta
Canada
T1L 1H5
403.762.6100
www.banffcentre.ca

We recognize, with deep respect and gratitude, our home on the side of Sacred Buffalo Guardian Mountain. In the spirit of respect and truth, we honour and acknowledge the Banff area, known as “Minihrpa” (translated in Stoney Nakoda as “the waterfalls”) and the Treaty 7 territory and oral practices of the Îyârhe Nakoda (Stoney Nakoda) – comprised of the Bearspaw, Chiniki, and Goodstoney Nations – as well as the Tsuut’ina First Nation and the Blackfoot Confederacy comprised of the Siksika, Piikani, and Kainai. We acknowledge that this territory is home to the Shuswap Nations, Ktunaxa Nations, and Métis Nation of Alberta, Rockyview District 4. We acknowledge all Nations who live, work, and play here, help us steward this land, and honour and celebrate this place.