TEMPORARY EXHIBITS
Discover what’s new at the museum
Our temporary exhibits bring fresh perspectives and timely stories to the Canadian Museum of Health Care. Developed in collaboration with researchers, artists, and community partners, these changing displays highlight new discoveries, untold histories, and contemporary issues in health and medicine. From thought-provoking explorations of public health and medical innovation to creative projects that connect personal experiences with Canada’s health heritage, each temporary exhibit offers visitors something new to see and learn.
COMING NOVEMBER 27, 2026
James Reid Funeral Home Presents:
Never Alone / Jamais seuls
Death Care in Canada, 1850s to Today
Some of the most tender moments in human history have happened in the presence of death.
Never Alone / Jamais seuls explores how care for the dying and the dead has changed across generations. Once provided at home—often by women, with neighbours keeping watch and a local cabinetmaker supplying a coffin—this work gradually expanded into the services offered by dedicated funeral homes.
Presented by James Reid Funeral Home, the exhibition brings together historic objects from its collection and archival images to explore that evolution. A family-operated business serving Kingston since 1854, James Reid Funeral Home connects this wider history with the experiences of our local community.
The exhibition also considers how changing traditions, technologies, beliefs and conversations about death continue to reshape how we care for one another at the end of life.
Plan your visit
Canadian Museum of Health Care
32 George Street, Kingston, Ontario
Wednesday–Friday · 10 a.m.–4 p.m.
Opens November 27, 2026
Past Exhibits
They Are Loved - An Epidemic of Grief (2025)
They are loved-an epidemic of grief is a textile installation exploring disenfranchised grief and addiction, motivated by the loss of Tracey-Mae Chambers’ son, Parker. Each piece of clothing or other textile based material used in this installation has been donated by someone who is surviving the loss of someone due to the consumption of a harmful substance that resulted in death.
Tracey-Mae Chambers is an installation artist and a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario. Since 2021, Chambers has been traveling across Canada creating site specific fibre-art installations at residential school historical sites, cultural centres, museums, art galleries, and other public spaces mapping questions of identity while sparking dialogue on displacement, decolonization, and reconciliation. To date she has created at Rideau Hall, Aga Khan Museum, the Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 and over 150 other sites.
This exhibition was made possible by the Ontario Power Generation Regional Empowerment Grants Program.
Custodial to Curative Care: Rockwood and the Evolution of Mental Health Treatment (2023-2025)
This exhibit explored the evolution of psychiatric care in the 19th and 20th centuries through the lens of Rockwood Asylum, Kingston’s first psychiatric hospital. Through artifacts, text and supplementary digital resources, the exhibit traced shifts in approaches to care from Rockwood’s founding to its closure.
This exhibit was made possible through the Paul Osmond Robertson Memorial Fund.