Workers Arts & Heritage Centre

Workers Arts & Heritage Centre Canada's only national labour history museum and arts centre, housed in Hamilton's historic Custom House.

Please be advised that WAHC will be closing at 1:30 pm today.Join us tomorrow at noon for our regularly scheduled hours....
05/29/2026

Please be advised that WAHC will be closing at 1:30 pm today.

Join us tomorrow at noon for our regularly scheduled hours. Thank you for understanding! ✨

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Educators: it's your last chance to book a School Visit for the 2025/26 school year at WAHC! We're excited to share our ...
05/29/2026

Educators: it's your last chance to book a School Visit for the 2025/26 school year at WAHC! We're excited to share our Pilot Program of four new curriculum-connected tour themes.

Each School Visit includes a heritage exhibition tour and a hands-on activity. Curriculum connections include elementary and secondary Arts, History, Social Sciences, Indigenous Studies, and more!

We have some subsidized spaces and two more dates in our calendar available, so act soon to schedule your visit. Follow the link in our bio to book today.

How do WAHC’s members spread the word about us, and build support for us in ways large and small? Ask Stephanie Ross, Pr...
05/28/2026

How do WAHC’s members spread the word about us, and build support for us in ways large and small? Ask Stephanie Ross, Professor of Labour Studies at McMaster University, and longtime member of WAHC.

In lieu of gifts from family members, she asks them to make a one time or recurring donation to WAHC to help sustain our work. Such a thoughtful way to help propel our unique forward!

WAHC’s new Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Guide is full of suggestions for how you can help raise money for WAHC to help us thrive.
https://tinyurl.com/mvfbcuwd

Here’s a testimonial from Stephanie about the effortless way she builds support for WAHC through honorary donations:

“My sister-in-law lives abroad. We are all at a point in our lives where we want to acknowledge each others’ birthdays, but don’t need more 'stuff.' We’ve developed a practice of donating to things in our local communities that we each care about. That’s how her birthday donations to WAHC came about. It’s a way to show she’s thinking of me when we are far away, and (have people) support the things in my community that I love.” 💕

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WAHC is tabling at the convention this week in Toronto! Pop by our table and say hi to Cayley James, our Outreach and D...
05/27/2026

WAHC is tabling at the convention this week in Toronto!

Pop by our table and say hi to Cayley James, our Outreach and Development Specialist, in the Gallery.

✒️ Sign up for the mailing list
👕 Purchase some new WAHC merch
🖼 Learn about our current season of programming
👫 Join our membership to support WAHC

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We had the pleasure of hosting a tour for members of the CUPE Staff Retirees Association today! Arranged with the suppor...
05/26/2026

We had the pleasure of hosting a tour for members of the CUPE Staff Retirees Association today! Arranged with the support of WAHC member Derek Blackadder, it was a wonderful way to start our week.

We hope to see you at WAHC again soon!

Interested in arranging a tour for your own group? Learn more by heading to our website today.

Also - fun fact! Sustaining Members can Gift a Tour. Just head to the link in our bio to learn more.

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Please note that WAHC will remain closed today—Saturday May 23rd—due to a private rental. ☔️ We reopen for regular hours...
05/23/2026

Please note that WAHC will remain closed today—Saturday May 23rd—due to a private rental. ☔️

We reopen for regular hours on Wednesday. Join us then!



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✨ Meet our program volunteer, Zane! ✨WAHC is lucky to have wonderful volunteers, and over the next few weeks, we’ll be p...
05/22/2026

✨ Meet our program volunteer, Zane! ✨

WAHC is lucky to have wonderful volunteers, and over the next few weeks, we’ll be profiling some of our newest ones.

Zane is a volunteer who used to be regular participant in our camp programs when he was kid! We are so proud that he has continued to be a part of the WAHC community.

“I’m Zane. In my spare time I love to play guitar and watch movies. One of my favourite subjects in school is computer engineering because I love to code and build things.

“I wanted to volunteer at WAHC because I find all the (arts-based) workshops very interesting and I love (spending time) in WAHC’s old building.” 🏛️

Help us welcome Zane!

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Introducing Sal(t) Collective 🌀 Sal(t) Collective includes artists Azul Duque and Kyra Royo Fay. Their work currently ex...
05/21/2026

Introducing Sal(t) Collective 🌀 Sal(t) Collective includes artists Azul Duque and Kyra Royo Fay. Their work currently exhibited in Thin Spaces, 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘵: 𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥 (2026), explores decolonial water relations alongside the Frailejón, a high-altitude plant being native to the Andean páramos.

Want to engage more with Sal(t) Collective's work? Join us for a free sound workshop, 𝘚𝘰𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘤𝘪ó𝘯: 𝘝𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, led by Azul Duque on May 28, 6-8 pm EST. Register through the link in our bio. 🔗




Artist bios:

Azul Carolina Duque was born and raised in Colombia, between the Andes mountains and the Pacific coast of Latin America. Azul plays and learns through the art-life practices of music composition, clowning, facilitation, grief-tending, and performance. She holds a Master’s degree in Society, Culture, Politics and Education from the University of British Columbia.

Kyra Royo Fay is a Filipina-American multi-undisciplinary artist, educator, and facilitator living on the unceded territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Nations. Her practice spans performance, visual arts and arts-based facilitation, often grounded in community settings and land based inquiry.

📸1: Kyra Royo Fay's headshot. Image courtesy the artist.
📸2: Azul Duque's headshot. Image courtesy the artist.
📸3: A person engages with 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘵: 𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥 (2026).

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What's on your Long Weekend Playlist? 🎶WAHC has some suggestions courtesy of our show Solidarity Forever: Workers' Sound...
05/16/2026

What's on your Long Weekend Playlist? 🎶

WAHC has some suggestions courtesy of our show Solidarity Forever: Workers' Sounds and Songs!

Visitors have been sharing their favourite songs about work, solidarity and resistance. And it's shaping up to be quite the mixtape.

Next time you pop by Custom House let us know what labour songs you love! Or let us know in the comments.

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05/16/2026

🌀Soanación: Voice as living relation🌀
May 28, 6-8 pm EST | Free
51 Stuart St, Hamilton ON

Join sound artist and grief worker Azul Duque in a somatic sound workshop at WAHC. Rooted in Sal(t) Collective’s practice of Soanación—a Spanish wordplay between sound and healing—the workshop opens questions about colonial relationships with body and land, and invites us to meet the voice not as product or performance, but as a living organ of care.

Together, we will explore sound as a vibrational membrane that holds memory, receives the touch of territory, and remembers songs, bodies, and land as living relation.

🔗Event is free, please register in advance through the link in our bio.

This event activates Thin Spaces, curated by Elwood Jimmy and presented in partnership with the Musagetes Foundation.




📸1: Azul Duque's headshot. Image courtesy the artist.
📸2: Participants in a previous workshop led by Azul. Image courtesy the artist.
🎶: Audio clips from mist to root: labour of land (2026), Sal(t) Collective.

Address

51 Stuart Street
Hamilton, ON
L8L1B5

Opening Hours

Wednesday 10am - 4pm
Thursday 10am - 4pm
Friday 10am - 4pm
Saturday 12pm - 4pm

Telephone

+19055223003

Website

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