CURRENT EXHIBIT

Curated by Yicong Wang

October 2026 – January 2027

This exhibition explores the importance of cultural heritage and what is lost when it is damaged, displaced, or forgotten. Featuring artefact and manuscript facsimiles, books, and architectural fragments, it highlights international efforts supported by the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage (ALIPH) to safeguard cultural heritage around the world. Through these materials, visitors are invited to consider the fragility of our shared heritage and the collective responsibility to preserve it for future generations.

Yicong Wang is a PhD candidate whose research interests include Chinese classical texts, manuscript culture, book history, and material culture. A graduate of the University of Toronto with High Distinction in Book and Media Studies and East Asian Studies, Wang received several academic awards in 2024, including the Academic Achievements Award in Book and Media Studies.

Digital Exhibit Here.

Organized by Sara Fackrell
April 2026 – September 2026

This exhibit highlights the work of artist and book cover designer Bascove, who created more than 15 covers for the novels of Robertson Davies. It explores her artistic inspiration and distinct graphic language, her creative process from concept to cover, and her working relationship with Davies. It also places her work in conversation with the wider visual and social environments of North American book cover design in the 1980s and 1990s.

View Digital Exhibition Here. 

Curated by Joe Diemer
October 2025-March 2026

Between May and October of 1851, more than six million people traveled to London to visit the Great Exhibition. The event transformed Hyde Park into a colossal display case, assembling objects from around the world within the glass walls and ceiling of the 990,000 square-foot Crystal Palace. Drawing from the Ruari McLean Collection at the Robertson Davies Library, The World in Glass Cases seeks to examine how people, objects, and nations were exhibited within the Crystal Palace as well as how the Crystal Palace was exhibited within Victorian print.

Bringing together an assortment of print objects published before, during, and after the event, this exhibition takes the materiality and cultural legacy of the Crystal Palace as grounds to reconsider the transparency of glass cases themselves. As you peruse the exhibition’s vitrines, I invite you to meditate on the mechanisms of curation and exhibition on display. What are the cultural values reflected by these necessarily partial representations of the Crystal Palace and its contents? And what are the curatorial values reflected by the near-invisible barriers that group some print objects together while keeping others apart?

View Full Digital Exhibit Here. 

Curated by Devin De Silva
May 2025 – October 2025

This exhibit brings together a curated selection of the miniature book holdings at Massey College, many of which have never been publicly displayed. This collection draws mainly from the personal libraries of Canadian book artist William Rueter and British typographer Ruari McLean. From historic pocketbooks to experimental press editions, each volume challenges the limits of scale while showcasing the diversity of the miniature book form. This exhibit is presented across four thematic vitrines—featuring books relating to everyday life, works from abroad, Victorian classics, and handcrafted limited-editions—and we invite you to consider both the traditions and the innovations these tiny volumes represent.

Curated in reference to the Will Rueter miniature catalogue collated by Colleen Thumlert and installed with the assistance of Jenny Weng.

View Full Digital Exhibit Here

Curated by CBBAG, Coordinated by Barbara Helander, and installed by Chana Algarvio, Alice Ainslie, Andreea Marin, and Devin De Silva

April 15 – May 15, 2025

Kindred Spirits is a touring book arts exhibition that responds to the work and life of Lucy Maud Montgomery. The pieces were created by members of the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild (CBBAG) as an acknowledgement of the enduring legacy of Lucy Maud Montgomery at the 150^th anniversary. Kindred Spirits has made its way across Canada and will be in the Robertson Davies Library for one month. The exhibition launched on Monday, April 14 in the Lower Library. To view the event and keynote speakers click here.  To view a digital slideshow of the items on display click here. For more information on Kindred Spirits please follow the link here.

Curated by Robbie Steele

January – April 2025

This exhibition explores the intersections between queerness and the book arts. Ranging temporally from the emergence of medically defined homosexuality in the mid-nineteenth century through to the onset of the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s, the books in this exhibition trace the evolution of queer identities and queer expression on the printed page. The exhibition seeks to highlight not only how queer authors and illustrators understood their identities within their historical contexts but also how artistic movements, such as the Aesthetic and Decadent movements of the late-nineteenth century, facilitated queer collaborations, queer communities, and modes of queer expression.

Curated by Chana Algarvio

September 2024 – December 2024

Manuscript books come in a variety of shapes, sizes, forms, and are made from a variety of materials that can be considered both physically and metaphysically mobile. This exhibition celebrates the multi-material and multi-physical nature of books from the ancient to the modern world. Ranging temporally from the 21st century BCE to the 21st century CE, geographically from Africa to East Asia, and materially/physically from a clay tablet to stacked palm leaves held together by string, a vast range of manuscript cultures will be on display. The exhibition not only serves to highlight the diversity of “the book”, but also showcases that the production of manuscripts did not cease after the invention of print, regardless of which region in the world, as there are cultures today that still actively engage with their manuscript tradition by practicing historical production methods of handwritten books. The exhibition was tied to a Symposium.