An image from the video installation by Malaysian artists Hayati Mokhtar and Dain Iskandar Said. (Museum of Anthropology)

The UBC Museum of Anthropology will open a new gallery on Saturday with an exhibit of contemporary works from artists with a range of cultural backgrounds.

The 5,800-square-foot Audain Gallery is part of a major renovation at the Vancouver museum, renowned for its collection of First Nations art.

The Salish baskets and Bill Reid sculptures are still there, but a large new exhibit space has been added to attract major international travelling shows to Vancouver.

The opening exhibit Border Zones: New Art Across Culture has works by 12 contemporary artists ranging from aboriginal sculptures created by Ron Yunkaporta of Australia to a meditation on genocide by French artist Tania Mouraud.

The show blurs the lines between the anthropological and the artistic, mixing multi-media art and sacred objects such as the Hindu artifacts in the installation by Richmond, B.C., priest and artist Prabakar Visvanath.

An electronic soundscape by expatriate Canadian artist John Wynne focuses on an endangered First Nations language — Gitxsanimaax. Spoken by only about 400 people, it's one of a dozen endangered languages in B.C.

"There are lots of languages that are disappearing at different speeds," Wynne told CBC News. "There an exotic allure in working with those languages, but I like my work to be able to contribute something."

Wynne worked with a linguist to collect examples of the language and create an archive that can be returned to the community where it is spoken. The soundscape is accompanied by photographs.

The exhibit also includes a video installation by Hayati Mokhtar and Dain Iskandar Said of Malaysia, and a mixed-media installation that creates a dialogue between the Yangtze and Fraser rivers, by Vancouver artist Gu Xiong.

Mouraud, a French artist who produces photographs and paintings, merges images of a metal dump with metaphors of genocide.

The opening of the exhibit space marks the completion of a $55.5-million expansion of the Museum of Anthropology into an advanced anthropological research facility.

The 16,000 artifacts at the museum, including a rich collection of art from the Pacific Coast First Nations, have been reorganized in the new wing, called the Centre for Cultural Research.

The Audain Gallery is named for Vancouver philanthropist Michael Audain, whose foundation donated $2.5 million.

The opening of Border Zones on Saturday is the first of a series of events planned to kick off the new galleries and the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad.