Two New Indigenous Exhibitions in Winnipeg

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Maureen Gruben, "Breathing Hole" (detail), 2019

Dricore insulation board, stainless steel pins, sealskin, white cotton thread, 48" x 30"

The Winnipeg Art Gallery opens two new Indigenous exhibitions that  highlight Indigenous art leading up to the opening of the gallery's Inuit Art Centre in 2020.

The shows, curated by Jaimie Isaac, the gallery's curator of Indigenous and contemporary art, and Jocelyn Piirainen, the assistant curator of Inuit Art, also mark the United Nations declaration of 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages.

Subsist, on view until May 20, includes photography, drawings, sculpture and installation to explore discussions surrounding the seal hunt and Western globalization policies.

It includes a new work, Maureen Gruben’s Breathing Hole, an installation of 18,000 sealskin pins hand-fixed onto 40 squares of pale blue insulation, and also features Mark Igloliorte’s Seal Skin Neck Pillow, which reimagines a traditional material. It refers to the 2010 European Union ban on the trade of seal products.

Meanwhile, the second show, ᐃ, builds out from a symbol in both Inuktitut and Anishininiwak syllabics that is translated as ‘I’ to embody self-determination and solidarity in collective reclamation.

The connection between the two cultures stems beyond language and syllabic. In 1968, a group of carvers from Garden Hill, Man., the Ministic Sculpture Co-operative, travelled to Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, to research Inuit stone carving. 

Northern artists were exploring ceramics, having been recently introduced to clay through a federal government project inspired by Indigenous pottery from the south. Clay and stone sculptures in the exhibition display influences of the two cultures.

“What I loved about collaborating on these two exhibitions was how everything came together, naturally and intuitively," says Piirainen. "With ᐃ, it was the discovery of the Ministic Sculpture Co-op’s travel to Rankin Inlet that brought together wonderful pieces of stone and ceramics.

"In subsist, I hope that audiences come to understand the long history that has been passed down from elders and ancestors that goes into providing for oneself and for family – from the meat of the caribou or seal to feed ourselves, to its skin that is then used to clothe."

Source: Winnipeg Art Gallery