Fall 2024

We are excited to give you brand new exhibitions, such as Franco-Manitoban artist Dominique Rey’s first solo show at the Gallery, featuring her two children, Madeleine and Auguste Coar. MOTHERGROUND is truly a family affair and offers an in-depth exploration of motherhood through small and large-scale photographs, photo collage, human-scale sculpture, and video installation. This show is a must-see that might just bring your own relationships into focus.

Backyard Florilegium examines the history of botanicals through the Gallery’s collection and select loans to reveal how categorization can mean colonialization in artworks that depict local flora. This is a stunning show that will make you think twice about what we grow in our own backyards and what we think of as a native versus a non-native plant.

Also opening this fall, Disorientations considers the ways in which our worlds can change and suddenly feel dissimilar. Looking through the lens of six artists spanning several decades and backgrounds, this show will dissect the universal feeling of disorientation while also sharing different perspectives so we can all gain a better understanding of each other.

October was Islamic History Month and we celebrated all month long with a special partnership with Healthy Islamic Families, complete with the exhibition Ihsan (now on view until January 2025), an art auction, and programs including panel talks, calligraphy classes, and special pop-ups.

As you have come to expect in November, the Gallery will transform for our annual CRAFTED Show + Sale, which brings together over 100 artists from Manitoba and the North all under one roof for three incredible days. In this banner 10th anniversary year of CRAFTED, get a head start on your holiday shopping and get your tickets for the incredible Fashion Show winding through the galleries.

Coming up in the winter, we’ll also be hosting another Live Mixtape Event with Synonym Arts Consultation featuring an exhibition opening February alongside Black History Month, panel talks, a living library, and culminating with a musical performance on National Indigenous Peoples Day in June.

Meanwhile, we invite you to see exhibitions that are ongoing at the Gallery, including Lita Fontaine’s Winyan and Omalluq Oshutsiaq’s Pictures From My Life that are featured in our spring/summer myWAG, which in case you it, is still available for you here.

You make all of these exhibitions and programs – and so much more – possible for everyone in the community, and we are very grateful for your continued support. Thank you for your commitment as we strive to use art for positive change, and make Winnipeg and Manitoba better for the people who live here and visit.

On behalf of everyone at WAG-Qaumajuq, we wish you all the best this season and look forward to seeing you at the Galley soon!

Sincerely,

Dr. Stephen Borys, WAG-Qaumajuq Director & CEO

We wanted to showcase different pieces from our collection that hadn’t been displayed before. After consulting with Elders and reading Indigenous texts, we began to explore how plants are part of the broader history of colonization. We were both eager to present an exhibition that highlights how plants themselves have been colonized.
-Riva Symko and Nicole Fletcher

Plants share a lot of similarities to art – they are collected, used for inspiration, and serve as hobbies for many people. Backyard Florilegium showcases modern and historical depictions of flora from the permanent collection, as well as beadwork, herbarium specimens, and an early Manitoba plants folio borrowed from the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections and Le Musée de St. Boniface-Museum, respectively.

Tess Michalik. I feel with my eyes, 2017. Oil on panel. 42.4 cm. diam. Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Gift of the artist, 2019-1.

A ‘florilegium’ (derived from the Latin ‘florilegus’ which means a collection of flowers) is an anthology of flowers. Historically, florilegia were created by white settlers, wealthy landowners, and explorers to collect information about the “new lands.” Some of these collections would even be published and circulated to readers in Britain, France, and beyond so people could learn about the colonies. At its root, collecting has always been a symbol of ownership and power – a way of showing off the wealth and status of the owners. Backyard Florilegium introduces both native and non-native plants and asks you to refamiliarize yourself with these plants, through artists’ depictions, to appreciate each organisms’ uniqueness.

Today, the distinction between native and non-native plants, as well as what is considered a weed versus a “useful” plant, have been blurred. Some non-native plants that were introduced locally serve important purposes, such as being used in food and medicine, and are not considered invasive or disruptive. They exist in the complicated mixture of harmony and dissonance that is nature. Another important thing to consider, is that nature does not categorize itself as we do – nature simply does what it wants, while we, as humans, impact the natural world daily.

Artist once known (Métis). Beaded Panel, n.d. Velvet, sateen, linen, cotton, beads. Collection of Le Musée de Saint-Boniface Museum, EE-362. Photo courtesy of Le Musée de Saint-Boniface Museum

There are both Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists included in the show, which highlights the different cultural perspectives of plants. One work showcases a beaded panel from a previously known Metis artist (formerly classified as ‘unknown artist’), depicting stylized florals popular in First Nations art. It’s important to understand that these beaded designs would often be recognizable within the community’s visual language as specific plants. The goal of this exhibition is to encourage visitors to think more deeply about the world around us, our connection to the land, and to foster a greater sense of care for it.

Backyard Florilegium covers a wide range of topics. On a basic level, we all have exposure to plants-even if it’s just walking by a flowerpot on the sidewalk. However, the exhibition also explores the scientific, historical, and cultural significance of plants, how we interact with them, and how we have been influenced to do so. Take your time in this exhibition to reconsider your relationship to plants, and to your own back yard.

Ernest Lindner. Skeleton of the Forest, 1966. Watercolour on paper. 75.9 x 56.1 cm. Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Acquired with the assistance of the Canada Council, G-69-27. Photo: Ernest Mayer

Interested in learning more?  Read about Indigenous perspectives on plants in Christi Belcourt’s book, Medicines to Help Us, which you can pick up at ShopWAG, and the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Backyard Florilegium
On Now until March 30, 2024
Curated by Dr. Riva Symko, WAG-Qaumajuq Head of Collections & Exhibitions, Curator of Canadian Art and Nicole Fletcher, WAG-Qaumajuq Registrar
Mezzanine Gallery

The idea for the exhibition took shape when Grace discovered she was pregnant and found herself grappling with identity shifts and changes beyond her control – becoming a mother, changing family dynamics, shifting work timelines for maternity leave, and the many other factors that accompany pregnancy and bringing a new life into this world. As feelings of disorientation became more frequent for Grace, she turned to the permanent collection to explore how artists expressed their own experiences of having their life, identity, or history turned upside down. The results of this exploration will now be on display in the exhibition.

Kara Elizabeth Walker. Freedom: A Fable, 1997. Paper. 23.7 x 21 x 1.5 cm. Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Gift of the Peter Norton Family, G-98-250.

Disorientations features six artists spanning multiple decades and various themes related to feelings of uncertainty, confusion, and disorientation. You will see works from evergon, Kara Walker, KC Adams, Rosalie Favell, Yasumasa Morimura, and Ekene Emeka-Maduka (not part of the WAG-Qaumajuq collection). Each artwork relates to different aspects of identity and politics, yet are united by a common theme: how we create and confront history while grappling with our own identities.

The goal of the exhibition is for visitors of all walks of life to find a common ground through the artists and artworks presented. By seeing and understanding different perspectives, visitors can explore how disruptive or challenging moments can shift the way we perceive the world.

Grace was particularly excited to share with visitors the universality of this indescribable feeling and how artists from various backgrounds address topics like race, home, politics, gender, and sexuality. Despite their different experiences, these artists are aligned in their mission to convey a feeling and present important topics related to identity, sparking meaningful conversations.

Disorientations
Opening November 6, 2024
Curated by Grace Braniff, WAG-Qaumajuq Assistant Curator of Art
Gallery 7

As part of the accompanying catalogue, Dominique and Riva conducted an interview delving into Dominique’s processes, mediums, and thoughts on becoming a mother. Below is a snippet from that interview; to read more, you can pick up a copy of the catalogue at ShopWAG.

Dominique Rey. In Case of Storms (03), 2020. Archival pigment print. 48″x36″.

RS: For a long time you’ve been pushing the boundaries of the medium of photography, which is steeped in the politics of representation. You’ve been using sculpture, performance, collage, but you still refer to yourself as a photographer. What is it that you find so compelling about lens-based practices specifically?

DR: I don’t know that I actually refer to myself as a photographer. Though I would agree that photography is the primary medium that I utilize. But it always starts in the body. Even my more abstract collages allude to the corporeal. The camera is the conduit for recording the performance of the body.

Sometimes the photographic image, or the camera itself, become the means for collaging and abstracting the body. I think it comes from my concern with the materiality of the photographic image. Its potency, and how that encounter with the body has so much power. The sculptures, which derive from the collages, are for me human-scale photographic objects that oscillate between massive bodies and thin shards of form, the interplay of image and object.

The material of acrylic has been something that I’ve been experimenting with throughout the sculptural work I’ve done. Sometimes I’ve adhered photographs to the acrylic, sometimes left the acrylic as is. It’s a highly reflective material. It reflects itself, the space and the works around it, as well as the viewer, creating a collage within itself. This happens in unexpected ways that are outside of my control as the artist. In this there is an infinite possibility of transformation.

Dominique Rey. Locked Beneath the Wave, 2024.

RS: Using the body, you have been examining ideas specifically of balance, imbalance, push, pull, merge, emerge. Can you talk a bit about how you came to those ideas?

In sculpture, the notion of balance and imbalance, has always been important and specifically to this project, it speaks to the relentless balance/imbalance that is at stake during the early developmental stages of motherhood. My collages and assemblages are by nature, precarious. They find equilibrium but it is a finite place.
-Dominique Rey

RS: They’re unstable.

DR: Everything is constantly changing. There are times when life can feel chaotic and out of control. And other moments, where all the disparate parts that make up one’s life coalesce, what feels like a moment outside of time. I’m interested in the co-existence of these extremes, and the gamut of experiences that reside within this continuum.

Dominique Rey. MOTHERGROUND, 2022. Archival pigment print, 59″x78″.

RS: Knowing that the work started from your own quotidian experiences as a mother, at what point did you start to incorporate the other parents into your photographs and collages? I’m thinking about works like Going Under (2017), for example.

DR: That first phase…was like a sketch between my child and I. Then my instinct was to work with other people because at the time I didn’t think I wanted this to exist as a portrait of my children and myself/ the artist. I thought it would be interesting to see other parents and children engage one another through movement and play.

Ultimately, there was a certain movement-based performance that I was after that was so clear in my mind that it did become important for me to try that out with my children through improvisation, dance, wrestling.

RS: …it looks like play, it looks like disciplining.

DR: …it can be all of those things. The project really began in a more substantive way with these other families, then it veered back to a deep dive into performing with my children. I really had a very specific image going into the performances regarding how the image was going to be framed, the lighting, the environment, what we would be dressed in.

However, that is always the end of the control because now that I’m working and collaborating with both of my kids, it’s completely out of my hands. I’m not under any kind of illusion that I’m going to direct them. I realized early on that was foolhardy and it wasn’t even interesting – if they were to engage in this process – they needed to set the tone and cadence. I liked the lack of control because for one thing, that was more like reality. It also speaks to where their minds were at. If this was going to be fun and if it was going to be true or have authenticity, they would have to be the directors. Simply by their nature, they invited chance and unpredictability. I’ve endeavored to honour that essence in the process of making the works, and collage is well suited to that framework.

RS: When I think about the exhibition as a whole, it’s almost as though the works take on a very distinct evolution of medium. This may not be the case, but it looks like the mediums progress from performance to photograph to collage to sculpture. Can you explain what the process actually is?

DR: There’s translation and back and forth between mediums. In works like Confluence (2019) – through the background environment, through the strange costumes that we were wearing, confusing figure/ground – the photograph itself, without further manipulation, embodies the qualities and notions that are important. Whereas in others, I feel like this is just the starting point but I can see its potential for material exploration, for collage.

Often I’ll just be in the studio with multiple prints cut up and all kinds of processes ensue. Sometimes it is through material exploration, other times, though less so, the project or the piece starts as a digital collage. In that case, a digital collage might get reprinted at different moments of its evolution. Then using those individual prints, I again cut up, re-layer, shift things again, then sometimes re-photograph. It’s in the process of that re-photographing, using strobes to cast shadows, that the final work usually emerges. Though actually I keep manipulating even after that – there could be no end in sight!

RS: Where does the video fit into this process?

DR: It’s really the culmination of this whole project.

RS: It’s almost like the beginning and the end.

DR: And there’s no doubt that the nature of time-based media is impactful. How it captivates our senses and by-passes defenses that would otherwise be in place.

The video really brings to life and makes tangible this (meta)physical connection between mother and child. I think there are foreboding and dark elements to certain passages, but at the same time, there’s always an underlying core. That no matter what, even in moments of instability or, stress, the sense that life is magic.

RS: Like birth and life…and art-making.

MOTHERGROUND: Dominique Rey with Madeleine and Auguste Coar
On Now until March 30, 2025
Curated by Dr. Riva Symko, WAG-Qaumajuq Head of Collections & Exhibitions, and Curator of Canadian Art
Presented by Michael Nesbitt
Galleries 8, 9

Snapshots features a collection of work from Walter J Phillips, capturing quintessential Canadian summer experiences such as camping, visits to the cabin, and family road trips. These peaceful, idyllic, and innocent scenes resonate with many viewers and may even shape and influence our own memories.

George Hunter Canadian, 1921–2013 MB: Winnipeg – Typical River Heights Family at Home, 1945 gelatin silver print on paper 20.4 x 25.4 cm Image: 19.5 x 24.5 cm Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery⁠
Gift of George Hunter for the National Film Board, courtesy of Library and Archives Canada, 2008-356. Photo: George Hunter.⁠

Curator Grace Braniff invites you to question whose idyllic summer is being depicted. Who does it belong to? Who creates these expectations for the Canadian family, and who is excluded from participating? The exhibition challenges us to reconsider what these Canadian vacations, escapes to the “wilderness” – actually represent. The national parks we flock to are federally managed, controlled, and shaped by tourism. Our financial ability to participate in wilderness tourism ties us to the very things we seek to escape – the city and all it represents. Snapshots asks: do we truly feel the simplicity that nature offers, knowing what we must achieve in order to experience it? Who is left out of this process? Often, these Indigenous lands have become home to affluent settlers and remain out of reach for the working class, further linking to notions of what the ideal family is and who was allowed to form a family, particularly in the late 19th century context.

Similarly, Made of Many: Multiplicity of Self explores the complexities of identity and challenges our perceptions of normalcy. This show features works by Ivan Eyre, Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline, Esther Warkov, and Sheila Butler, each exploring conceptions of personhood in unique and diverse ways.

Eyre creates surrealist-inspired paintings that represent an alternate reality, challenging our expectations. He manipulates the human form by doubling, multiplying, covering, and distorting his figures, simultaneously constructing and dismantling representations of people in ways that challenge our understanding of self.

Great art is always a way of concentrating, reinventing what is called fact, what we know of our existence — a reconcentration… tearing away the veils, the attitudes people acquire of their time and earlier time. Really good artists tear down those veils.
-Francis Bacon

We encourage you to see both exhibitions at Assiniboine Park and share your thoughts on the questions they raise. Art is meant to push us to think outside the box and to challenge our comfort zones – we’d love to hear your perspective!

Snapshots: Our Phantom Nostalgia and Made of Many: Multiplicity of Self
On Now
Curated by Grace Braniff, WAG-Qaumajuq Assistant Curator of Art
WAG@The Park

Through art, the Mixtape Project hopes to showcase the intersections between Black, Indigenous, and disabled communities and draw attention to racial and accessibility issues. “Seeing the sparse amount of Black art in the WAG permanent collection was disheartening. It shows the neglect and the priorities of the city, the colonial narrative of the city – what was ‘valued’ as art…Black people have been in Manitoba for well over 100 years, yet our representation is so small,” says Wynrush.

The exhibition, titled Kin, will use artworks created by Black and Indigenous artists to hold space for each other, be allies, and create community together. Curated by Wynrush and Julia Lafreniere, WAG-Qaumajuq Head of Indigenous Ways & Learning, the exhibition will be a central point to the project to facilitate important conversations.

The Mixtape Project wants to change the narrative around Black and Indigenous art and accessibility and invite conversations and collaborations with participants. “This all started very organically in 2017/18…I wanted to bring together established and emerging artists and have them collaborate on music and art together. Art helps us learn about each other, understand each other, it creates empathy, it’s very powerful.” Wynrush also stresses the need to make accessibility something that is irresistible. “If disabled people aren’t in the rooms, our needs will always be neglected, what helps disabled folks, helps everyone…The future has to be accessible.”

The 2025 Mixtape Project will largely take place in Gallery 3 of the WAG and will concentrate on hosting conversations about the art on the walls. “We really want to create a safe space for people, to create small groups with elders from Black and Indigenous communities to talk about the art, ask questions, discuss the history of the city, and Treaty 1. We want to bring the art into context and bring our communities together, I want our communities to see themselves being valued in public institutions like WAG-Qaumajuq.” Education will take centre stage, with special school programs and tours being offered during the run of the Project.

The Walls should reflect the community.
–Nestor Wynrush

“I think public institutions need to put all the puzzle pieces together and be a space where everyone in the community can gather, feel welcomed, and feel a sense of belonging.” Having Black and Indigenous art on the walls for longer than just a day, week, or month, is a way that the Gallery can have a prolonged dialogue about these issues. Partaking in conversations with all types of people – donors, collectors, minority communities, ensures that many perspectives are being voiced. “Having decision makers in the rooms where these conversations are taking place, that’s where the power lies – in creating a dialogue of understanding.”

The Mixtape Project will conclude with a concert on June 21, National Indigenous Peoples Day, at WAG-Qaumajuq, but Wynrush hopes the conversations and changes won’t stop there. “I’ve been coming to the Gallery for a while now, and I can see the positive strides taking place, but we still have a long way to go. We need to keep reminding people that we can all change the narrative.”

Kin
Opening February 2025
Curated by Nestor Wynrush and Julia Lafreniere, WAG-Qaumajuq Head of Indigenous Ways & Learning
In partnership with Synonym Art Consultation
Supported by the Canada Council for the Arts

Recently, Colleen hosted a virtual learning session alongside artist Goota Ashoona, sharing her remarkable work with classrooms from across the country. This immersive experience, where students learn directly from educators and artists working inside the Gallery, leaves a lasting impression on the participating students. Over the past eight years, WAG-Qaumajuq has been able to extend its reach, hosting nearly 600 virtual sessions with over 100 classrooms. For many children, these sessions provide a rare opportunity to explore art and express themselves creatively – experiences that often ignite a lifelong passion for art.

The impact of these programs has been profound. Teachers have reported seeing students engage in ways that surprise them – breaking out of their shells to share their ideas, artwork, and reflections. These sessions have transformed how students perceive and interact with the world through the lens of art.

None of this would be possible without the support of generous donors and members like you. Your contributions empower WAG-Qaumajuq to make vital connections with communities across Inuit Nunangat and around the globe, enriching the lives of children who may not otherwise have access to these opportunities. Whether it’s a classroom in a remote location or a child learning from home in Manitoba, this support makes all the difference.

Donors and members like you are truly the driving force behind these meaningful experiences. Your continued commitment to WAG-Qaumajuq enables the Gallery to foster creativity, build connections, and share the power of art with young minds. Thank you!