window

window winnipeg presents A Homemade Practice, a workshop delivered by artist/curator Liz Ikiriko.

Workshop date: Sunday, March 26 1-3pm CDT / 2-4pm EDT

Location: online, via Zoom

Accessibility information: Please contact [email protected] with any access needs.

This workshop is free to attend. Please sign up through our link in bio \\ Please sign up at the following link:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-homemade-practice-tickets-586074754367

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Image description: An array of collages is visible. They overlap each other and fill the image. Imagery throughout the collages includes people, a ram, shells, plants, jewellry, roman numerals, and music notes. Visible words among the collages include “The Sun,” “Spellbound,” “New group rules,” “spaciousness,” and “cultivation | cur.” 

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“What else can you offer the earth, which has everything? What else can you give but something of yourself? A homemade ceremony, a ceremony that makes a home.” - Robin Wall Kimmerer

Hosted by Liz Ikiriko, A Homemade Practice workshop is a practice in breathing, embodied listening, citation, art making and finding ways to cultivate ceremony in the everyday.

Ikiriko will draw on sourcing natural, found materials and the physical act of making as ceremony. Reflecting on numerous artists, writers, and teachers, the workshop will focus on sharing resources for creating a foundational sense of belonging and home in any environment.

The workshop will include a short breathing exercise, meditation, and participants are asked to bring a physical project to work on throughout the online workshop. This could be knitting, collage-making, sewing, painting, etc. 

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About the artist:

With over fifteen years of experience in the field of contemporary art and photography, and as a Nigerian Canadian mother, maker and curator, Liz Ikiriko has delivered large-scale complex projects working closely with a variety of artists, organizations and institutions, while prioritizing narratives of the African diaspora. Through collaboration and research, she supports and creates embodied experiences to facilitate moments of belonging and care with her communities. She received her MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University and has taught photography at Toronto Metropolitan University and Sheridan College; worked on publications including Public Journal, MICE Magazine, Blackflash, Akimbo, C Magazine and most recently contributed to Aperture’s As We Rise: Photography From the Black Atlantic. She is the co-founder of the Ways of Attuning Curatorial Study Group, was a member of the curatorial committee for the 13th Rencontres de Bamako, African Photography Biennial and is the inaugural Curator, Collections and Art in Public Spaces at the Art Museum, University of Toronto. 

window is located on Treaty 1 Territory, the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree,

Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the Homeland of the Métis Nation. window is

co-curated by Noor Bhangu, Mariana Muñoz Gomez, and Jennifer Smith.

window winnipeg presents the poetry of ugly pickles: a compost related workshop, delivered by visiting artist Vivienne Bessette.

Workshop date: February 25, 2023, 3-5pm

Location: Fort Rouge Leisure Centre, 625 Osborne Street

Accessibility information: All areas are wheelchair accessible. There are gendered washrooms available.

This workshop is free to attend. Please sign up by clicking this link.

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Image description: Text in the image reads: “the poetry of ugly pickles. workshop with vivienne bessette. saturday february 25, 2023.” The text is white and the background is olive green. In the top left corner there is a shadow of a plant.

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Vivienne Bessette will host the poetry of ugly pickles: a compost related workshop centred around food, composting, and community resources. Using produce and materials gathered by Bessette, participants will garble/sort/arrange them into delicious and interesting pickles to take home.

We will be sharing resources about good grocery stores, where to get dollar bags of food, seconds, and “ugly” produce. If you have suggestions or ideas (a story about abundant summer fruit trees in the neighbourhood?) regarding community resources, share your thoughts at the workshop!

Materials for the workshop will be supplied, however participants are asked to bring a knife and cutting board if possible.

This event is presented in conjunction with Bessette’s exhibition Party line, on display at window and surrounding areas from January 28 to March 17, 2023.

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About the artist:

Vivienne Bessette (b. 1982) is a queer settler & interdisciplinary artist whose ancestry ties them to Ireland, Croatia, France, and the Metis settlements of Cayer, MB, and Red River. Bessette incorporates drawing, painting, woodworking, sculpting, dying, writing, fermenting and building relationships with plants into their practice. They work in and out of the studio, the garden and the kitchen, developing sustainable and alternative modes of food production and utilizing unconventional materials. The strength of entangled and interdependent community is at the stomach of Bessette’s process. Bessette holds a BFA from Simon Fraser University. They have been involved with multiple garden and food-based collectives, including Commons Garden at Sahalli Park Community Garden, Garden Don’t Care, Looking at the Garden Fence, and the project What artists bring to the table for the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria with Derya Akay and Kurtis Wilson. Bessette was a Food Coordinator for Slow Waves Small Projects on Mayne Island. They have been published in The Capilano Review (“Pattern of Pears,” 2020 and “Organize Your Building with the Support of the Vancouver Tenants Union with the Belvedere Residents,” 2018). They live and work on the stolen and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlí̓lwətaʔɬ Nations.

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window is located on Treaty 1 Territory, the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the Homeland of the Métis Nation. window is co-curated by Noor Bhangu, Mariana Muñoz Gomez, and Jennifer Smith.

WINNIPEG’S ONLY 24 HOUR ARTIST-RUN CENTRE PRESENTS VIVIENNE BESSETTE

Location: Artspace Building, corner of Bannatyne @ Arthur [sidewalk level]

window is pleased to present our fifty-seventh installation:

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Image descriptions: 

[Image 1]: An oversize poster hangs in the window. It is green throughout with details in red, yellow, purple, and blue. It reads "COMPOST HOTLINE. Dial Now!" Strips dangle at the bottom with a phone number on some of them, as if ready to tear off. The imagery includes a red phone, compost, and superimposed images of flowers and organic material.

[Image 2]: A regular size version of Bessette's poster is stapled up on an outdoor bulletin, among other posters.

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Party line, 2023

Material list: RJ-45 talking to RJ-11, exponential growth of compost slime, spiritual technology of the tear-off flyer, landlordism, call waiting as extra sensory perception, antidote.

By Vivienne Bessette. On view until March 17, 2023.

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Artist statement:

The compost hotline is just a phone number but it is also a network of gardens, an imaginary friend and an always-developing informal online collab space where artists, gardeners and community organizers can temporarily freeze the flow of the internet (spirit net) to reflect and share research, personal archives, or the 2am–4am late-night google unconscious. It is meant as an alternative to death for precious trans liminal space, digital scraps, not-to-be-forgotten embodiments, or otherwise entombed hard drive materials. To apply, upload files into the google drive as a constellation of web links, screen shots, images, a recording, or text about what is keeping you up at night.  ~~ About the artist:

Vivienne Bessette (b. 1982) is a queer settler & interdisciplinary artist whose ancestry ties them to Ireland, Croatia, France, and the Metis settlements of Cayer, MB, and Red River. Bessette incorporates drawing, painting, woodworking, sculpting, dying, writing, fermenting and building relationships with plants into their practice. They work in and out of the studio, the garden and the kitchen, developing sustainable and alternative modes of food production and utilizing unconventional materials. The strength of entangled and interdependent community is at the stomach of Bessette’s process. Bessette holds a BFA from Simon Fraser University. They have been involved with multiple garden and food-based collectives, including Commons Garden at Sahalli Park Community Garden, Garden Don’t Care, Looking at the Garden Fence, and the project What artists bring to the table for the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria with Derya Akay and Kurtis Wilson. Bessette was a Food Coordinator for Slow Waves Small Projects on Mayne Island. They have been published in The Capilano Review (“Pattern of Pears,” 2020 and “Organize Your Building with the Support of the Vancouver Tenants Union with the Belvedere Residents,” 2018). They live and work on the stolen and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlí̓lwətaʔɬ Nations.

window is located on Treaty 1 Territory, the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the Homeland of the Métis Nation. window is co-curated by Noor Bhangu, Mariana Muñoz Gomez, and Jennifer Smith.

WINNIPEG’S ONLY 24 HOUR ARTIST-RUN CENTRE PRESENTS Oluuji

Location: Artspace Building, corner of Bannatyne @ Arthur [sidewalk level]

window is pleased to present our fifty-sixth installation:

Of One’s Own Accord

acrylic on canvas

By Oluuji, curated by Sappfyre McLeod

Of One’s Own Accord is an installation in an ongoing series of paintings revolving around anxieties concerning growth. In this diptych, the subject is sat alone in space(s) separated by the panels, space(s) neither here nor there, with no apparent end in sight, both behind and in front of the subject. The piece seeks to use vast space(s) as a natural element in reverence to the significance and magnificence of space as a fundamental component of universal existence. In the space(s), the subject sits while he stares contemplatively at his reflection in a mirror, as he puts scissors through his hair. Hair represents a significant part of identity as it shapes or reflects aspects of one’s identity, and this is particularly true for people who identify as black. The piece intends to maintain a unifying theme of ambiguity, provoking the viewer to infer a plurality of narratives concerning the scene. Does he cut his hair after or does he not? Why? Is he sitting outside in a lush green field or is he in a hallway? This aims to accentuate the apparent gravity of decisions, ones that initially seem mundane but eventually mean a lot, ones that initially seem particularly impactful but end up somewhat irrelevant, or ones that we are yet to find out just how far their reach goes. These moments of making decisions appear to progressively become more noticeable as we grow into our own selves, start to develop a firm sense of personal identity and seek to carve out our own stories in the short time we’ve been gifted to experience conscious living.

About the artist:

Aderemilekun Olusoga, also known as 'Oluuji', is a sentient variable of infinite forms experiencing nowness as a moment between both ends of infinity.

He is a self-taught Nigerian visual artist currently living in Canada, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience in 2022. His innate skill and affinity for philosophy, religion and science cultivate a wide array of complex thoughts he communicates most effectively through his art. Through painting and film, his work explores the ubiquitous nature of binaries, cycles and conventionality in anthropic structures. Examining the dissonance between nostalgia and growth, personal or societal, worldly or spiritual, in a surrealist bid to provoke profundity towards the outwardly mundane.

window

window is located on Treaty 1 Territory, the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the Homeland of the Métis Nation. window is co-curated by Noor Bhangu, Mariana Muñoz Gomez, and Jennifer Smith.

This installation was made possible with the generous support of the Winnipeg Arts Council.

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WINNIPEG’S ONLY 24 HOUR ARTIST-RUN CENTRE PRESENTS EVE TAGNY

Location: Artspace Building, corner of Bannatyne @ Arthur [sidewalk level]

window is pleased to present our fifty-fourth installation:

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Image description: In a street-level window box on the exterior of a beige stone building with snow all around, photographic artwork shows a hand reaching into the centre of the space. The artwork is made up of two images–behind the hand, which is printed on translucent fabric, a hazy landscape with forested hills can be seen.

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Moors [Romancing the uncultivated]

Prints on vinyl and organza, 42 x 50", 2022.

By Eve Tagny, on view until April 6, 2022.

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About the artist:

Eve Tagny is a Tiohtià:ke/Montreal-based artist. Her practice considers gardens and disrupted  landscapes as mutable sites of personal and collective memory—inscribed in dynamics of  power, colonial histories and their legacies. Weaving lens-based mediums, installation, text and  performance, she explores spiritual and embodied expressions of grief and resiliency, in  correlation with nature’s rhythms, cycles and materiality.  Tagny has a BFA in Film Production from Concordia University and a Certificate in Journalism  from University of Montreal. Recent exhibitions include Momenta Biennale, Musée d’art  contemporain de Montréal and Centre Clark, Montreal; Cooper Cole, Gallery 44, and Franz  Kaka, Toronto. She is the recipient of the Mfon grant (2018), the Plein Sud Bursary (2020) and  has been shortlisted for the CAP Prize (2018), the Burtynsky Photobook Grant (2018) and the  OAAG Award (2020).

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Artist statement:

Through a lens-based installation practice, I observe the creative ways in which marginalized  individuals and communities commit to live, rather than merely survive, and resist personal  annihilation. I focus on intimate settings and relations of kinship to understand how members of  diaspora communities deal with feelings of ostracism and discomfort, or create a sense of safety  and belonging, particularly given the current rise of nationalisms and defensive identity politics.  

In the past years, my practice has shifted towards a continuing investigation of the correlations  between bereavement processes and natural (non-synthetic) spaces, materials and rhythms, that  serve as the ultimate guides for pathways of resiliency and renewal. Gardens are posited as man made sanctuaries, spaces simultaneously encompassing all stages of the living, from luscious  growth to decay, always engaged in processes of renewal and transformation.  

Images, both still and moving, are treated as vestiges of memories, tangible traces of what once  was. Put either in conjunction or tension with organic materials, they become transformational  mnemonic objects or humble altars, infused with ritual gestures that allow for the reification of  grief and loss.  

Performing of reinterpreted rituals serves to observe how they can be used to commemorate,  process, integrate, and sometimes reinterpret memories that become both personal and collective  history. Slowly, over time, unfolds an embodied vocabulary of trauma. Through the quasi obsessive repetition of a set of gestures, I explore how traumatic histories inscribed themselves  in the body which then becomes a vessel to transmit, perpetuate, expiate or mend the legacy of  trauma.  

These organic forms and physical gestures are framed within space by sheer synthetic materials,  thus referring to the tension between the various stages of the living and decaying, the immaterial  nature of loss, entrapped, fading or mutable memories, the hygienic — almost impersonal  treatment of violent deaths, and the desire to control our environment as we control our bodies,  whether they be pulsating with life or tainted with the blue of death.

Life and death can be understood as one same process of constant becoming, when one commits  to living according to nature, therefore showing us paths towards building more sustainable futurities.

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window is located on Treaty 1 Territory, the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the Homeland of the Métis Nation. window is co-curated by Noor Bhangu, Mariana Muñoz Gomez, and Jennifer Smith.

WINNIPEG’S ONLY 24 HOUR ARTIST-RUN CENTRE PRESENTS JAMES DIXON

Location: Artspace Building, corner of Bannatyne @ Arthur [sidewalk level]

window is pleased to present our fifty-third installation:

Nikawiy

2021, digital photograph

Featuring work by James Dixon, on view until January 2, 2022.

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Artist statement:

Nikawiy is a triptych of still images from James DIxon’s upcoming film of the same name. The film explores James’ histories through an exploration of language portrayed with a sense of urgency and and movement. 

About the artist:

James Dixon is an Indigenous filmmaker and artist based in Winnipeg. With a BA in Film and Indigenous Studies from the University of Manitoba, James’ work revolves around his personal process of decolonization. His films have exhibited widely in Canada, broadcasted on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, and collected by the Alexander Street Press.

James is an accomplished arts educator who has worked with Freeze Frame, the Winnipeg Film Group, and Camp Aurora, providing workshops on film history, documentary film making, and painting for both youths, and adults.  

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window is located on Treaty 1 Territory, the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the homeland of the Metis Nation. Window is co-curated by Noor Bhangu, Mariana Muñoz Gomez, and Jennifer Smith.

WINNIPEG’S ONLY 24 HOUR ARTIST-RUN CENTRE PRESENTS RUDI AKER

Location: Artspace Building, corner of Bannatyne @ Arthur [sidewalk level]

window is pleased to present our fifty-second installation:

topographies of a someplace 2021, vinyl, digital prints of beaded maps, 6 x 6′.

Featuring work by rudi aker and curated by Marie-Anne Redhead, on view until October 14, 2021.

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Artist statement:

topographies of a homeplace is an ongoing research-creation project exploring counter-cartographies and mnemonic narratives through topographical beaded maps. Informed by familial experiences, cultural histories, and personal memory, topographies of a homeplace engages a process of automatic writing alongside abstracted map-making. In its first iteration, topographies of a homeplace: wolastokuk, documented five culturally significant sites with a focus on corresponding bodies of water – to connect intimate and communal understandings of Wolastoqiyik homelands. The wolastokuk topographies are both spatial and emotional expressions of a connection (and disconnection) to ancestral territory, to a home, and to the conflicting histories which surround and contextualize these spaces.

topographies of a homeplace: nikonuk (series II), the second iteration of the counter-mapping project features five new maps delineating immediate and emotionally robust expressions of another series of homeplaces and spaces. The nikonuk maps demarcate a succession of past apartments, living situations, and ultimately, a home of one’s own. The focus on the interior landscapes tends to more concrete conventions of domestic space – the accompanying writings work to inhibit a private inquiry in which love, longing, grief, and joy have and do occur. Created within the confines of global pandemia, when and where mobility has been extremely limited, this series engages the reconciliatory heart-work necessary to extend notions of home to include the transitory: the in-between, the making-do.

At its core, topographies of a homeplace centralizes a sovereign practice of map-making, separate from the colonial conquest to assert ownership over nations, of people and their territories. These maps offer a queered alternative – as tools whose function is dependent on their holder or seer – to reiterate the question of utility, mobility, and temporality within a longer lineage of histories.

*topographies of a homeplace: wolastokuk was first presented in the form of an artist book.

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About the artist:

rudi aker is a wolastoqew auntie, artist, organizer, and curator from St. Mary’s First Nation in Sitansisk (Fredericton, New Brunswick) and, for now, a guest on Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyaang (Montreal, QC). Their artistic and research practices center care, relationality, placehood, and visibility with a focus on the traversal of (un)colonized spaces through conceptions of counter-cartographies and barrier-breaking.

Their ongoing research-creation project, topographies of a homeplace, explores the boundaries of cartographic practice through beaded spatial representations – hand-held topographical maps accompanied by historically and personally informed auto-writing on site-specific experiences.

About the curator:

Marie-Anne Redhead (Ininiw/francophone) writes things, and sometimes curates or creates. She is currently a guest on Treaty 1 territory.

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window is located on Treaty 1 Territory, the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the homeland of the Metis Nation. Window is co-curated by Noor Bhangu, Mariana Muñoz Gomez, and Sarah Nesbitt.

WINNIPEG’S ONLY 24 HOUR ARTIST-RUN CENTRE PRESENTS ELI FARINANGO

Location: Artspace Building, corner of Bannatyne @ Arthur [sidewalk level]

window is pleased to present our fifty-first installation:

Alli Yachishpa, 2020, Digital Print on Fine Art Fabric.

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About the artwork:

In the Kichwa tradition we use our chumbis (woven belts) to bring healing to our bodies, the red signifies the blood that brought us to this life and the blood that has been shed for us to still exist. The carnations are used in ceremonies during our most important festivities and lately the eucalyptus has played an important part in my worldview.

This piece brings together these elements to signify the transition of time and the need to continuously heal myself with elements handed down to me by my lineage. In this long exposure are the hands of my mother, sister and myself as we shared a moment of creation.  This is an offering to my relatives who walk through this territory in search for healing, connection and reconciliation.

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About the artist:

Eli Farinango

is a Kichwa photographer. She was born in Quito, Ecuador and raised in Ottawa, Canada. She holds an Honours BA in Political Science and Latin American Studies from the University of Toronto. She has extensive experience working in the non-profit sector and in media communications. She has been published in various publications including Remezcla, Waging Nonviolence, Telesur English. In 2019, she was awarded the first prize in the individual category in the international photography contest by Fotografas Latinoamericanas, shortlisted for the Lucie Foundation Emerging artist scholarship, selected to be a Women Photograph mentee. In the same year, she attended the Banff Centre for the Arts to participate in Trainings for the Not Yet residency. She was also selected by fototazo, a curatorial project highlighting emerging Latin American photographers where she showed her work Jatarishun, a personal documentation of community resistance in the Ecuadorian uprising in 2019.

In 2020, she attended the Banff Centre for the Arts to complete the Indigenous Media Arts training where she began developing the long term project Runa Kawsay, which documents the indigenous diaspora in North America.  Earlier this year, she was selected to be part of the Garden Project, facilitated by Industry Theater where she developed a multimedia performance piece exploring identity and migration Mama Chumbi.

She is currently enrolled in the Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism Program at the International Centre of Photography.  She is currently based in Haudenosaunee territory.

About the curator:

Diaspora in Diaspora قربت در غربت

is an online/on paper publication. Their work can be viewed at

instagram.com/diaspora.in.diaspora

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Activation of Merritt Johnson’s Fancy Shawl for the frontlines, 2020 by Jaime Black. The shawl is on view in window gallery until December 6.

When I first receive Fancy Shawl for the frontlines I bring it to the Manitoba Legislature grounds where Indigenous groups from across the city are holding a month long vigil and fast to protect children in the 'care' of child and family services. The lawn is covered with hundreds of hand drawn signs that read: Bring Our Children Home.

In Manitoba 90% of children in care are Indigenous.

I bring the shawl to this space thinking of the ways our culture can protect us, remind us, empower us to speak out against injustice. I bring the shawl to this space to bless it with the powerful energy of the women and community members who are working here to reconnect families, to maintain culture and community in spite of the ongoing violence of colonization.

Conversation between Winnipeg-based artist, Jaime Black and Sitka Alaska based artist, Merritt Johnson in the context of Johnson's solo exhibition of Fancy Shawl for the frontlines at window winnipeg on veiw from October 12-December 6, 2020.

WINNIPEG’S ONLY 24 HOUR ARTIST-RUN CENTRE PRESENTS MERRITT JOHNSON

Location: Artspace Building, corner of Bannatyne @ Arthur [sidewalk level]

window is pleased to present our fiftieth installation: Fancy Shawl for the frontlines, 2020 by Merritt Johnson on view until December 6, 2020. PROGRAMMING: Activation by Jaime Black: photo series and text to come Conversation between Merritt Johnson & Jaime Black: https://vimeo.com/468171644

Fancy Shawl for the frontlines is made for standing up to the elements, settler state and corporate violence, and systematic institutional and environmental racism. The shawl honors Indigenous protectors of Land and Water throughout Turtle Island. Made from an inexpensive waterproof tarp, commonly used to shelter people and belongings from weather, and to construct shelters, tents or tarpees, the material references access and necessity, resilience and persistence under oppressive or dire circumstances. The shawl is adorned with matching blue fringe and ribbon, to recognize the importance of celebrating and protecting Indigenous women as instrumental protectors of land, water, culture, and future generations. Indigenous women are on the frontlines, experiencing the violence, oppression and racism of corporate settler states, and on the frontlines organizing to stop violence against the lands and waters for present and future generations. Merritt Johnson was born in West Baltimore and spent her childhood navigating between trees, tarps and concrete. She earned her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art. For decades her work has navigated the spaces between bodies and the body politic, land and cultures. The multiplicity of materials and processes Johnson employs reflect her multiplicity. Her work is layered, insisting on allegiance and agency to land, water, culture, and bodies subjected to violence and control by anthropocentric, cis-hetero patriarchy and white supremacy.   Johnson’s works are containers for story, feeling and thought: images of what cannot be seen, exercises for existence, and containers for ideas. Her work casts light and shadow on how and who we are, and envisions possibility. Johnson’s work is in numerous private collections as well as the public collections of the Birmingham Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, she lives and works with her family in Sitka Alaska.

WINNIPEG’S ONLY 24 HOUR ARTIST-RUN CENTRE PRESENTS JOY IS MORE THAN JUST A FEELING

Location: Artspace Building, corner of Bannatyne @ Arthur [sidewalk level]

window is pleased to present our forty-ninth installation:

Joy is more than just a feeling

Featuring work by Iyunade Judah, Glodi Bahati, RYAN AD, Opal Rose White, Akum Maduka, and pluetoe. Curated by Mahlet Cuff and Ekene Maduka. 

Works on view July 16 - 27, 2020, L-R: Iyunade Judah, Sequel to bond, 2019. Glodi Bahati, When she asked me why I left, 2020.

Work on view July 31 - August 11, 2020: RYAN AD, PHANTASY no.3, 2019.

Work on view August 18 - September 4, 2020: Opal Rose White, This Joy Is / Joy After Storm, 2020, poetry. Akum Maduka, Group Photograph, 2020, graphite, ink, and charcoal on paper; and Today, I bought a flower, 2018, graphite, ink, and charcoal on paper.

Work on view September 14 - 18, 2020, in partnership with Wall-to-Wall Mural and Culture Festival, at Synonym Gallery: pluetoe, juno, 25:00 min.

Curatorial statements:

To understand trauma as a Black person and see the pain that not only you yourself go through but the suffering of others in your community–it leaves you and stays with you always. The events of racism, anti Blackness, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and ableism being heightened and used against Black people in the recent months is not new. It is not new to see violence, discrimination and ongoing trauma being displayed for everyone to see and witness at the same time. I know for myself and the ways I have been able to digest everything that has happened, it is important to take time to process, think and rest. To take care of myself when I see Black people being murdered and accountability is not even a part of the equation.

To be angry, sad and be okay with that. To know that through all this grief, there is happiness within it. To connect with my community, to be surrounded by Black people however that looks like in the age of social distancing. These pieces by these three emerging artists showcase the feeling of pleasure as a Black person and to understand the humanization of the Black experience.

-Mahlet Cuff

I often think about little knee-jerk reactions that I impulsively make. Undoubtedly, waking up and jumping straight on my phone is one of those many actions that have become reflexive. The past few months have felt like a lot of things and nothing all at once–from an overwhelming consumption of violence against black bodies on multiple media outlets, to everything else in-between that has made the majority describe this time as “strange.” Not one work email coming into my inbox has missed out the words “I hope you are well in these trying times” and to some degree, these words have become redundant and lacking in comfort. A paradox really. Despite the strain, despite not being able to fully digest my anger and mixed emotions, one thing is constant; I’ve somehow found ways to genuinely laugh, to smile, to feel stronger in  vulnerability. Words are interesting and so is semiotics. The word ‘joy’ with its commonplace nature is as mundane as the act of casual laughter at a table with friends and loved ones. These moments are unaccounted for and are painted as “small” and quotidian. Reduced to just a symbol but robust in feeling. Reduced to the flatness of 2 dimensional prints by virtue of July’s artists Judah, Glodi and Ryan we see these moments frozen and highlighted as being important. I smile with Ryan’s subject with teeth and skin a deep cobalt blue from concert lights in the background. I am warm, I am lifted by the women embracing each other in Judah’s work and feel safe in the vulnerability and intimacy of Glodi’s women in white. From me and Mahlet Cuff and by window winnipeg, we write to you this love letter, a reminder really, that in the midst of our consumption of violence there exists many other sides to the narrative of “the black community”.

-Ekene Maduka

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About the artists:

Glodi Bahati is a 20-year-old black woman photographer, based in Winnipeg. Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and raised in Uganda as a refugee fleeing the civil war in her home country, art was a comfort in her life. Glodi has been captivated by photography from a young age, living in Canada, she started her unique journey by taking photos in her last year of high school. Glodi took part in an intensive program for her final year of study, where she was able to focus entirely on photography, within this program she was able to publish her first photography book “The Following.” Glodi currently showcases her work through Instagram but is working on a second book and future showcases. She is inspired by the women in her life and the world around her. Glodi’s work draws inspiration from street, conceptual and fashion photography. Artists like Vivian Maier, Petra Collins, Micaiah Carter and Carrie Mae Weems are a consistent inspiration.

Iyunade Judah is an artist-photographer based in Winnipeg Canada, originally from Ogun, Nigeria. His work focuses on the black experience from an African’s point of view in the diaspora. He has worked on a number of photo projects and short films on black masculinity, gender and afrocentrism. Judah's work primarily focuses on identity and a need for consciousness in African art. Iyunade says that "My work is inspired by my curiosity to discover African history and art. I found out that there’s almost no identity for me and a lot of people like me. I make use of imaginary narratives such as reincarnation in my practice to convey a message which might be on sexuality, history, identity or love. I infuse fabric as a backdrop to appreciate African prints and patterns which has become a personal style." 

RYAN AD is an interdisciplinary artist, cultural worker, and curator. i create multimedia experiences.

Opal Rose White (aka Sappfyre Mcleod) is a first generation Canadian of Jamaican descent. Her works create space for introspection with imagery that lingers, and pacing that captivates an audience. Themes in her works center around heritage, diaspora, and making moments of the mundane. Opal Rose White uses her poetry as a means of exploring: Identity, and blackness. Finding elements to celebrate and ponder in her writings.

Opal R. W. is a pen name dedicated to honouring the author’s Mother and Grandmother. Holding space for the names of her foremothers whose genealogy is erased in patriarchal systems. The name itself places honor, reverence and legacy for the three generations of women.)

Akum Maduka is a Winnipeg based emerging artist with Nigerian roots. Originally from an architectural background, her work investigates the role of societal constructs and their influence on human performance within space and how such notions have created skewed ideals of what a normative life should be. Her intimate drawings entwine these narratives with ongoing lived experiences, as she examines the pliancy and complexity of gender roles, sexuality, desire, and ethnicity in modern society. 

pluetoe, also known as Victor Ilunga, is a video and performance artist who has been honing his craft since 2013 and recently graduated from the Vancouver Film School where he studied game and app development.

Despite being a different domain he states he loves activating his creative side and is unafraid of the unknown. Often dabbling between videography, game programming & photography, pluetoe is constantly learning new ways to express his ideas using different mediums and artistry.

A Winnipeg-based video & performance artist, pluetoe has gradually submerged himself in to the Winnipeg art scene. pluetoe’s evolution into videography allowed him to introduce another element to his style, often stating that his influence comes from the music he listens to and not so much the films he watches.

Raised in South Africa, moving to Turtle Island (“Canada”) had an impact on his approach to how he creates his art, as well as his presentation.

About the curators:

Mahlet Cuff is an interdisciplinary artist from Treaty One territory, so-called Winnipeg, Manitoba, who uses mediums such as photography, collaging and poetry. Through their work she hopes to create more awareness about the lack of representation of women of colour and queer people of colour in media. Their work has been shown at local galleries and events such as aceartinc and Black Space’s Nuit Noire at Nuit Blanche. Their work has been shown at window winnipeg, Flip Fest, and in the artist-run center Tea Base in Toronto, Ontario. She explores topics of feminism, Blackness and gender through her artistic and activist practice.

Ekene Maduka is an emerging artist making work that combines lived and formulated events relating to notions of displacement, self representation and reconstructing identity. Her work often investigates the effects of cultural, social and political exposure on developing individual identity and its relationship to communal experience. More of her work can be found via her Instagram: @ekenemaduka

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window is located on Treaty 1 Territory, the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the homeland of the Metis Nation. Window is co-curated by Noor Bhangu, Mariana Muñoz Gomez, and Sarah Nesbitt.

WINNIPEG’S ONLY 24 HOUR ARTIST-RUN CENTRE PRESENTS INSTAGRAMMERS IN RESIDENCE

Location: @windowwinnipeg Instagram account, May - June 2020

window winnipeg is pleased to present five artists as our Instagrammers in Residence for the months of May and June, 2020. In light of the impacts of covid-19 on artists and galleries, window launched the Instagrammers in Residence program with the aim of supporting artists and to continue artistic discourse during this difficult and uncertain time. Each artist is invited to activate window’s Instagram account for one week over the course of these two months. The artists selected have diverse practices and are at various stages of their careers, engaging with gender, sexuality, and the body in distinct contexts.

@hagarmasoud_ Hagar Masoud’s visual and auditory practice concentrates on her interactions with the city through actions and phenomena such as daily life, walks, storytelling, personal memory, urban transformation, and soundscapes. Her project Samira’s Tales reflects on three periods of her life as a female child, adolescent, and adult in the city of Cairo within the backdrop of broader social and political contexts. Hagar is a member of the all-female photo collective, Cairo Bats.

@chukwudubemukaigwe Chukwudubem Ukaigwe is a Nigerian born artist based in Treaty 1 Territory. He is an interdisciplinary artist, choosing particular media to relay a specific idea at a given time. He views art as an entry into conversation: at times a portal into a conversation, sometimes as a take on an ongoing conversation. Chukwudubem’s recent performative videos are heavily based on collaboration to explore the body, movement, and space as art mediums.

@garbagebagprincess Christina Haggar is a queer femme first-generation Lebanese-Canadian artist, writer and organizer. She is passionate about collaboration and skills-sharing as tools of community building and resistance! Her arts practice utilizes image-making, performance, poetry, installation, zines, and facilitation to grapple with diaspora, queerness, food, feminism, and intergenerational inheritance.

@c.grahamasmundson C. Graham Asmundson has been an active artist and cultural worker in the Winnipeg arts scene for the last twenty-five years. In his collaborations with his son, Jaimz Asmundson, on the short films Drawing Genesis (2008) and The Magnus (2011), the duo share similar sources of inspiration but approach art-making from different mediums. Graham’s body of work is made up almost entirely of autobiographical impulses–his drawings and paintings have been labelled “quirky, queer, and controversial.”

@mobolaji_o Mobolaji Ogunrosoye is a mixed-media artist born in Lagos, Nigeria, whose practice revolves around the use of collage and photography to explore self and body image. She uses her artwork to question perception and social expectations related to the female body and emotion, and to reimagine various versions of herself. Bolaji relies on her lived experience to work through conflicting views and encourage conversations around fear, shame, and self as they relate to the female body.  

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window is located on Treaty 1 Territory, the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the homeland of the Metis Nation. window is co-curated by Noor Bhangu, Mariana Muñoz Gomez, and Sarah Nesbitt.

WINNIPEG’S ONLY 24 HOUR ARTIST-RUN CENTRE ANNOUNCES EXTENDED EXHIBITION OF WINDOW 48: RAJNI PERERA

Location: Artspace Building, corner of Bannatyne @ Arthur [sidewalk level]

window announces an extended exhibition of our forty-eighth installation:

Zahra2, Reproduction of original artwork: mixed media on inkjet print.

By Rajni Perera, now on view until May 31, 2020. Zahra2 can be viewed on window's social media, website, or by walking, biking, or driving by while maintaining a healthy level of social distancing.

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When I was first returning to my practice after having my daughter, I visited an exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum curated by Deepali Deewan called The Art Of The Embellished Photograph. While I had figured this medium existed I had never really seen them in person and they had a striking magical beauty about them. The history of the medium is also rooted in legacies of royal spectacle and making impossible worlds for the exalted and untouchable. But the medium itself struck me as a sort of proto-photoshop, where you don’t know where the photo ends and the painting begins. And the narrative itself doesn’t care about that. It floats in another dimension. In terms of my relationship with the work made for SFG and the way I think about it now, of course it’s evolving. I look back at the work I made and wonder about its place in terms of critique vs ornamentation, but I think it did well either way. For me it created an opportunity to analyze my relationship with colonial ideology, being an immigrant in a colony, and revisiting my colonized country of birth. In North America, where I live and make my work, the critique despite the ornamentation and embellishment is understood and felt. Abroad, I would say it has been more about just the aesthetics. So it could be that it is a diasporic perspective that is more wholly received in cities or hubs where there are many immigrants and some more postcolonial theory discourse being thrown around.

-Rajni Perera in conversation with Jyoti Dhar for Aperture Magazine,

http://www.rajniperera.com/embellished-photography

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About the artist:

Rajni Perera was born in Sri Lanka in 1985 and lives and works in Toronto. She explores issues of hybridity, sacrilege, irreverence, the indexical sciences, ethnography, gender, sexuality, popular culture, deities, monsters and dream worlds. All of these themes marry in a newly objectified realm of mythical symbioses. They are flattened on the medium and made to act as a personal record of impossible discoveries. In her work she seeks to open and reveal the dynamism of these icons, both scripturally existent, self-invented and externally defined. She creates a subversive aesthetic that counteracts antiquated, oppressive discourse, and acts as a restorative force through which people can move outdated, repressive modes of being towards reclaiming their power.

window is located on Treaty 1 Territory, the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the homeland of the Metis Nation. Window is co-curated by Noor Bhangu, Mariana Muñoz Gomez, and Sarah Nesbitt.

WINDOW 47: MELANNIE MONOCEROS (JANUARY 9 - FEBRUARY 8, 2020)

“As an individual,  I've been using image descriptions on instagram and online for a number of years, and have been curious to find ways of providing the same access to "live" or in person image sharing. For me, it is another opportunity to invite a connection with the art and it is part of my practice of intersecting my beliefs in liberation, disability justice and interdependence with my artwork.”