Spring Gallery Opening at Confederation Centre Art Gallery

Wednesday, March 15, 2023 – Two new exhibitions will be on view at Confederation Centre Art Gallery at the Spring Gallery Opening on Saturday, March 18 at 7 p.m. The evening reception will begin in Studio 1 with light food, a cash bar, music from the band Dehsk, and short performance from media artist and experimental filmmaker Colby Richardson.

The exhibition Aftereffects: Emerging New Media Artists in Winnipeg presents the work of nine Winnipeg-based emerging artists who work in film, video, audio, and other digital mediums. Supported by the RBC Foundation, the exhibition explores the cultural scene in Winnipeg through a close look at what up-and-coming artists are producing there.

“Winnipeg has always had a great art scene, especially for a city with under a million people,” says curator Pan Wendt. “Studio space is more abundant than in most Canadian cities, and artists seem to react to the brutal weather by hunkering down and working on their projects. It’s also distinctive culturally in that nearly a quarter of the population is Indigenous.”

The exhibition gives a glimpse into the future of Winnipeg art by focusing on a group of promising emerging artists working with technology. Patrons will have an opportunity to interact with the works using a variety of new technology, such as augmented reality.

The artists featured in the exhibition include: Kristina Banera, Kelsey Braun, Meganelizabeth Diamond, Ray Fenwick, Dallas Flett-Wapash, Taylor McArthur, Hanna Reimer, Colby Richardson, and Chukwudubem Ukaigwe.

Also on view is Lou Sheppard and William Robinson: Cabinet Music (Cantata for Erosion). The unique exhibition combines audio and sculpture to reflect on the history of Confederation Centre of the Arts and the shifting perspectives on Canadian Confederation. The use of sound is central to this project, with the sculpture-like pavilions of the Centre reimagined as both physical instruments and part of a conceptual “score”. Throughout the day, a pair of choral music pieces will be played intermittently, harkening back to a choir performance at the Centre’s official opening in 1964. The exhibition will also explore the process of erosion, inspired by the sandstone cladding of the building as well as Prince Edward Island’s coastline.

Robinson and Sheppard are Halifax-based artists who have both been finalists for the Sobey Art Award, Canada’s leading visual arts prize. Their work generally involves processes of recontextualization and translation, in which information and objects culled from historical research, and investigation of architecture and archives, is transformed and rearranged into new configurations.

Several artists from both exhibitions will attend the opening. For details on all Gallery events, visit confederationcentre.com.

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Architectural model for the Confederation Centre of the Arts, 1962. Photo courtesy of Confederation Centre of the Arts.

Dallas Flett-Wapash, AR Triptych, Panel 2 | Misko Namebin Zaaga’iagan: Piminahw Ispimihk Seepeesis (Red Sucker Lake: Flies Above the Stream), 2020, augmented reality print on paper.