Art and sustainable farming celebrated at Toronto and Vancouver events

Canadian Friends of the Israel Museum host POP-UP MUSEUM, Toronto

For three years now, the Canadian Friends of the Israel Museum (CFIM) have taken over a private home for their Pop-up Museum, a fundraiser that fills walls with impressive works from privately held Canadian collections for just one night. On Aug. 21, the Metrick family opened not their home, but rather their business, ELTE, an icon of home wares in Toronto, for the event (curated once again by David Moos). The Canadian friends chapter, chaired by Wendy and Elliott Eisen, is one of 15 working internationally to raise funds that support Israel Museum acquisitions and exhibitions. But it’s the Canadian chapter specifically that provides free entrance to the encyclopedic museum (the largest cultural institution in Israel) twice a week for children of all ages. New in the crowd this year was Professor Ido Bruno, who in the time since last year’s pop-up was named director of the Israel Museum. I also noticed a surge of gen-next do-gooders, namely Elizabeth Squibb Bronfman and Jonathan Bronfman, a young couple who chaired the event alongside philanthropists Heather and Max Gotlieb, whose Jack Bush painting titled HYMN from 1971 was one of three works by the artist included in the Pop-up.

University of British Columbia dinner in support of UBC Farm, Vancouver

A few nights earlier on the West Coast, another happening popped-up, this time outdoors: a long table dinner given in support of the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at University of British Columbia’s UBC Farm. The UBC Farm, a research centre or living laboratory of sorts devoted to food sustainability, grows more than 200 varieties of fruits and vegetables; its 24-hectare learning space is also home to egg-laying hens and honey-yielding beehives. A pair of tables stretched the length of the farm’s picturesque poplar grove on Aug. 17, and with a few strings of lights and the Wooly Bears Band, the stage was set for the field-to-fork five-course, fully sustainable meal crafted by UBC’s executive chef David Speight and the school’s Scholar’s Catering team.

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