Sound in Sight: Reimagining the Polaris Short List invites audiences to experience Canadian music beyond sound.
Since 2006, Polaris has invited Canadian visual artists to create original poster works in response to Short List-nominated albums. This exhibition presents a curated selection of those works as a visual journey through the history of the Polaris Short List, alongside newly commissioned posters connected to the 2026 Short List.
Each poster translates an album’s sound, mood, and cultural world into a new visual form. Together, the works offer another way to interpret and experience the albums that define this year’s Short List, while also highlighting the ongoing creative relationship between musicians and visual artists.
By placing music into a visual context, Sound in Sight asks how an album can continue to live beyond the act of listening, and how visual artists help expand the meaning, memory, and cultural life of Canadian music.
Through this exhibition, Polaris invites audiences to consider the album as more than a recording. It is a world of sound, image, feeling, and interpretation. It is a cultural object that can be heard, seen, remembered, and reimagined.
About the Exhibition
Sound in Sight: Reimagining the Polaris Short List features original poster artworks inspired by Polaris Music Prize Short List albums. The exhibition includes works created by Canadian visual artists in response to nominated albums, with each piece accompanied by interpretive information identifying the album, musician, visual artist, year, and context of the work.
Presented in the City Hall Rotunda, the exhibition creates a public-facing entry point into the Polaris Festival and invites audiences to encounter the Short List through visual art, design, and storytelling.
