Winnipeg Arts Council
103 - 110 Princess Street R3B 1K7 Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Winnipeg's Poet Laureate Duncan Mercredi is always writing and sharing. Visit the New Works page of our website to read some of what he has created during his tenure. http://winnipegarts.ca/poetlaureate/new-works

Read the newest offering from Winnipeg's Poet Laureate Duncan Mercredi, entitled "I love words" at the New Works page of our website. http://winnipegarts.ca/poetlaureate/new-works Duncan will be reading along with Marie-Anne Redhead and Özten Shebagegit as part of Gallery 1C03 at the University of Winnipeg's event on Friday October 30. All are welcome to attend via Zoom and details can be found at 1C03's web and Facebook pages. https://www.uwinnipeg.ca//2020-21/poetry-prose...-reading.html https://www.facebook.com/gallery1c03/posts/10157759167107879 See more

We made an app! Explore Winnipeg as you get to know the artwork that punctuates and brightens our city! Learn all about public art in Winnipeg: how to find it, why it’s there, and what it means. Get outside, learn fun facts, answer trivia questions, start your own art collection, and hear from the artists who created the work. Download it from the App Store or Google Play: Winnipeg Public Art Works App, Every piece has a story

Keep an eye out for Winnipeg Words, a celebration of contemporary Winnipeg poetry, on Winnipeg Transit and your neighbourhood libraries! This public art project, created in conjunction with Winnipeg’s Poet Laureate program, is a recognition of the power of words to establish the meaning of place. Incorporating play and imagination into our everyday spaces makes visible things we may have forgotten or neglected to notice, giving us a new perspective on our city. For selecting this experience of Winnipeg poetry here and now, we are grateful to Di Brandt, Winnipeg’s inaugural Poet Laureate (2018-2019). You can read the full poems and the poets' bios at http://winnipegarts.ca/wac/artwork/winnipeg-words.

Reconciliation is a complex and continuous process that is the responsibility of every Canadian. Reconciliation Mosaic was created by children at École Luxton School and Mary Kardash Child Care Centre while learning about residential schools with Elder Ellen Cook, artist Ursula Neufeld, and their teachers and families. Families shared their culture and regalia, and demonstrated dances. Through conversations and teachings, the children created responsive drawings about the f...uture of reconciliation that were developed into a plan for the artwork. The mosaic emphasizes the importance of respecting culture and learning from the land. It depicts a memorial for children who attended residential school, showing their spirits dancing on the Northern lights. The students also placed themselves into the braided heart with the Medicine Wheel and the earth to represent the future of reconciliation. Reconciliation is about establishing and maintaining a mutually respectful relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in this country. In order for that to happen, there has to be awareness of the past, acknowledgement of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the causes, and action to change behaviour. Learn more from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation: https://education.nctr.ca/ Photos 1-3 Reconciliation Mural at École Luxton School. Photos by Anna Mawdsley. 4-7 Creation process. Photos by Ursula Neufeld

Nominations are still open for the Winnipeg Arts Council Awards! Each winner will receive a cash award of $5,000 (for artists and arts administrators) or a work of art by a Winnipeg artist (for volunteers and arts patrons). Visit our website for details: http://winnipegarts.ca/awards

Nominate someone for a Winnipeg Arts Council Award! We are accepting nominations in each of the five award categories and a jury will determine the winners. Each winner will receive a cash award of $5,000 (for artists and arts administrators) or a work of art by a Winnipeg artist (for volunteers and arts patrons). Nominations are open effective immediately, and will be accepted until Friday October 9, 2020. Visit our website for full criteria and nomination forms: http://winnipegarts.ca/awards

The next deadline for the Individual Artist Grant Program for artists working in all disciplines is September 8th. This program is intended to support the creation of new work in any art form, or the development, production, curation, or exhibition of works of art by Winnipeg artists. Visit our website for application guidelines and to apply: www.winnipegarts.ca. Photo: Nicky Mehta (Individual Artist Grant 2017).

Have you seen the Louis Riel Institutes's Red River Cart Adventures spin-off series Did You Know? Episode 4 highlights Métis murals and public art around Winnipeg. Watch it with your kids! https://www.facebook.com/ManitobaMetisFederationOfficial/videos/262425891531943/... Thanks Manitoba Metis Federation!

Explore the public artworks around the Exchange District with us on July 23 at 7pm! Register through Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/artwalk-exchange-district-regis

Get out and explore Winnipeg this summer with public art! Message us to request a copy of our guidebook or join us on a free guided tour... https://www.winnipegfreepress.com//beauty-for-the-masses-5

Applications are now open for the September 8th deadline of the Individual Artist Grant Program. Visit our website, www.winnipegarts.ca, for application guidelines and to apply. Photo: Brenna George (Individual Artist Grant 2019)

It was a beautiful night for a bike tour yesterday! Don’t miss the next one...sign up today at winnipegarts.ca/GuidedPublicArtTours. Thanks to #bikewinnipeg for keeping us safe and for this great photo! #wac_public_art, #winnipegart,

Guided Public Art Tours are back! The season kicks off this Thursday July 9 with a Bike Tour of the Rapid Transit Corridor. Discover Métis Land Use by Tiffany Shaw-Collinge and six other new artworks! Spots are limited, so sign up today at http://winnipegarts.ca/GuidedPublicArtTours Photo credit: Anna Mawdsley

Salt Fat Sugar & Your Water is Safe: a project for the commons by Bill Burns Salt Fat Sugar & Your Water Is Safe considers food, animals, and the farm in relation to the commons, trade, and spiritual traditions. In this work, basic elements such as water, salt, fat, and sugar are invoked as poetic devices. Bringing together these seemingly disparate elements provokes contemplation and sheds light on a set of historical, social, and economic relations within advanced industria...lism that often go unnoticed. Salt Fat Sugar & Your Water Is Safe points to historical trade in commodities such as grease, pemmican, salt, sugar beets and honey along this part of the Red River. It suggests by turns the history of people, animals, work, and buying and selling. Its symbolism revolves around food production, the shrinking commons, the artistic avant-garde, and concrete poetry. Through this work, the artist suggests a set of schisms in our world between our nature and industry, the commons and the private. Photo by Anna Mawdsley

Read all about Tiffany Shaw-Collinge's community-driven process for creating her public artwork, Métis Land Use, as part of WAC's BLUE Line public art project.