From towering dinosaur skeletons to awe-inspiring contemporary paintings, ROM is home to more than 13.5 million artworks, artifacts, and specimens from around the world and across the ages. So, it should be no surprise ROM is also the most visited museum in Canada.

Don’t miss our FREE* 45-minute English and French tours. Tours start at the hour from 11am to 2pm daily.

*FREE with General Admission

Tour Descriptions

Museum Highlights
Explore the wonders of ROM. In a 45-minute tour that brings iconic objects to life, you’ll enjoy highlights of arts, culture and nature… throughout the world and throughout time.

Descriptions des visites

Les trésors du musée
Explorez les merveilles du ROM. La visite donne vie à des objets emblématiques à la croisée de l’art, de la culture et de la nature et ce à travers le monde et à travers le temps. Elle vous donnera aussi une bonne idée de l’ampleur des collections du musée.

Using gestural brushwork, bold colour, and the contours observed in the palm of his own hand, the lush paintings of Montreal-based artist Moridja Kitenge Banza reveal the impacts of resource extraction in his home country of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in his current home in Canada. His large format abstract paintings prompt us to consider the treatment of workers who labour in mines in the Congo, unearthing diamonds, gold, cobalt, and other materials that are swiftly exported for consumption in markets around the world. Banza’s imagined topographies suggest river systems and agricultural zones tainted by the waste of the mining industry, as well as the mass burial sites that can be detected on Google Earth and other surveillance platforms.

Moridja Kitenge Banza: Topographies is presented at the McMichael as a contemporary response to Cobalt: A Mining Town and the Canadian Imagination. While earlier generations of Canadian artists have depicted the mining industry as picturesque and even sublime, Banza asks us to consider the environmental and social impact resource extraction has on communities around the world.

Cobalt, Ontario—some 500 kilometres north of Toronto—was established in 1904 following the discovery of rich silver, cobalt, ore, and nickel deposits. At peak production in 1911, Colbalt provided approximately one eighth of the world’s silver. In its heyday, the story of Cobalt was known around the world, and the town attracted miners, scientists, scholars, and of course, artists. This exhibition showcases the work of the artists who visited and documented Cobalt and its silver mines between the First and Second World Wars, after much of the natural resource deposits were depleted. Among them was a rising generation of Canadian modern painters which included Yvonne McKague Housser, Bess Larkin Housser Harris, Isabel McLaughlin, Frederick Banting, A.Y. Jackson, and Franklin Carmichael. These artists created works that depicted Canada as a new, modern industrial nation in step with the future—a contrast to the better-known works from this period that picture Canada as untouched wilderness. While some artists conjured Cobalt as a heroic bastion of industry and enterprise, others focused on the town’s grit and dishevelment. This exhibition and its accompanying publication will explore both sides of this dynamic relationship and shine new light on the settler relationship with the natural landscape.

This exhibition is guest curated by Dr. Catherine Mastin.