City of light

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This article was published 17/11/2023 (1017 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SELKIRK — A lantern made of straw will be a beacon for winter revellers this weekend.

The latest addition to Holiday Alley, this city’s four-day celebration of art, sound, light, creativity and culture, will be a six-metre sculpture created from flax straw, fallen tree branches and wire erected on Manitoba Avenue.

Lithuanian artist Vytautus Musteikis has teamed up with Chris Pancoe of Winnipeg’s Anvil Tree, an art design and fabrication company, to build the giant lantern.

The concept for the lantern’s design was sparked after Holiday Alley officials sought ideas at a winter-cities conference held in Winnipeg in 2022.

Snow sculptures and winter activities such as tobogganing are no guarantee in November, owing to Mother Nature’s fickle weather patterns.

“Vytautus showed us all these wonderful sculptures he built in Lithuania and around that region,” says Pancoe, who, along with Sputnik Architecture, has helped The Forks’ warming huts event take off in Winnipeg every winter.

“(We thought), let’s invite him and we’ll build a sculpture together and try to make this a thing.”

While the lantern will be a drawing card for Holiday Alley, it will become a true light source in February when the straw structure will be lit on fire as part of another celebration, according to Lithuanian tradition.

“It seems like destroying everything, but it’s not disappearing. Some energy, some good feelings stay,” says Musteikis, who also carves ice and sand into artworks.

“It’s the same as theatre. They play it and people keep it inside in their heart.”

Small ornaments made of straw are part of Lithuania’s folk-art tradition, but about 35 years ago the notion expanded to giant statues of animals, long-limbed monsters and castles, a trend that has since spread to neighbours Latvia and Estonia, and other European nations.

“It’s in our blood but nowadays it’s becoming a new wave of art, like Burning Man in America,” Musteikis says, referring to the notorious festival in the Nevada desert, at which a giant wooden effigy is set ablaze.

Pancoe and Musteikis, who met while designing neighbouring rooms at the Icehotel in Sweden, were in Selkirk Thursday preparing to put the three parts of the structure together. They also taught students from Ecole Selkirk Junior High the basics of trying straw for their parts of the statue.

Selkirk proclaims itself the catfish capital of North America — a statue of Charlie the Channel Cat sits on Main Street — so it’s a no-brainer that a catfish made of straw will top the lantern.

This year marks the seventh annual edition of Holiday Alley, which began as a way to remind the city’s 10,500 residents about the art and cultural opportunities the city offers.

The four-day event began Thursday night when, at the flick of a switch, 40 city buildings glowed with lit-up decorations. Burnstick, the Winnipeg-based Cree-Métis duo that won a Canadian Folk Music Award in 2021, and the group Hillbilly Burlesque performed.

Almost 40 arts-related events take place during Holiday Alley, including concerts, teepee raisings — where Indigenous stories, crafting techniques and performances will be shared — a ribbon-skirt fashion show and a mysterious literary event: sheep poetry.

“Sheep roam around and people write poetry from words written on bibs that are put on the sheep,” says Shirley Muir, a co-founder of Holiday Alley, who adds that 80 people took part in sheep poetry in 2022.

The film Frozen 2 will be shown outdoors tonight at 6 p.m., and Santa Claus will be on hand for photos that will be projected on a screen at the Garry Theatre. Saint Nick will also attend a pancake breakfast on Sunday morning.

The festival has caught enough attention that Travel Manitoba saw the light and declared it the province’s tourism event of the year in 2022.

“We live in a community that has a really strong hockey culture, a really strong volleyball and basketball culture, and we know hidden here is a real passion for art, creativity and culture — and Holiday Alley is designed to help that flourish,” Muir says.

“We welcome the winter. It’s here. Embrace it.”

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

X: @AlanDSmall