Artist feels slighted by park plans

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This article was published 15/06/2023 (1137 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Métis artist Kenneth Lavallee designed The Square Dancers — a large-scale painted steel sculpture of jigging dancers anchored deep into the ground — he meant for it to be a permanent fixture of Air Canada Window Park.

So he was surprised when his piece and three other art works by Indigenous artists in the park were absent from the $2.5-million redesign plan shared with the public and media on Monday, raising concerns that they might be removed.

Lavallee’s sculpture, along with works by Rebecca Belmore and Osvaldo Yero, Julie Nagam and Roland Souliere, were installed in the park in 2018 as part of This Place, a permanent public art commission by the Winnipeg Arts Council.

“It hasn’t even been a full five years yet,” Lavallee said in a phone interview. “The paint is still drying, I feel. I see these (new) designs and it’s like, OK, great. You did some work, some consultations, I guess. But where’s all the stuff that I worked on for many years?

“I can’t speak for the other artists, but I didn’t hear anything about that or, ‘Hey, we’re gonna incorporate your thing into a new park.’”

Both the Downtown Winnipeg BIZ and the Winnipeg Arts Council responded to a post Lavallee made on his Instagram page, saying the existing public art will be integrated into the redesign. What that will look like has yet to be revealed.

But Lavallee isn’t so sure. “Really? Why isn’t it in the plans, if it’s so important?” He also doesn’t see space for the artworks in preliminary plans.

Landscape architect Meaghan Pauls of Scatliff+Miller+Murray, which won the contract for the redesign, said via email the plan shared this week “is a high-level schematic design that does not illustrate all of the park details. The four public art pieces are intended to be included…”

The Winnipeg Arts Council also confirmed to the Free Press on Wednesday that it has been assured the art is part of the redesign plan and will not be removed.

“The public art currently featured in the park (is) part of the plans,” Downtown BIZ CEO Kate Fenske said in an email. “While the concept plans shared this week are still preliminary, Indigenous culture and art are key components of the community-informed design directions.

“Both the existing art and new seasonal art projects have been noted in the early design documents and the project team will consult with all artists before confirming final locations for these important pieces of work.”

Lavallee, however, takes issue with rolling out preliminary plans with ceremony. Monday’s event started with a blessing by elder David Budd and included a hoop dance by the Mason Sisters.

“If you already know it’s not going to be anything like that and there’s a lot of reality you have to deal with — there’s gonna be traffic boxes and parking signs and all this utilitarian stuff — why present that to the public? Why have a ceremony when you know it’s gonna look nothing like that, when it’s all said and done?” he says.

“There’s something very, I don’t know, weird and disingenuous to present that and then later be like ‘Oh, sorry, that was an early version.’ And then doing a ceremony, too, and the whole park is based on a turtle design, and the turtle (signifies) truth. Already, you’re lying.”

The public art manager at the Winnipeg Arts Council, tamara rae biebrich, says she was pleased to see the public’s support for Lavallee’s concerns about the artwork.

“It reinforces what we already know about how appreciated those artworks are by the city, and by the community specifically that gathers in that park,” she says. “We’re really looking forward to the redevelopment of the park being informed by the sense of place provided by those existing artworks.”

jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com