Winter light in the Exchange Public-art festival back for second year By: Eva Wasney Posted: 6:06 PM CST Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024 Last Modified: 8:42 AM CST Friday, Jan. 26, 2024 Updates

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The Exchange District is shining a little brighter these days with the return of Lights on the Exchange-Allumez le Quartier.

The winter festival runs now until March 21, featuring all manner of light-based public art in storefront windows and street corners throughout the downtown Winnipeg neighbourhood.

“Last year was about establishing proof of concept,” says Exchange District BIZ executive director David Pensato. “This year is really taking what we’ve learned and starting to grow it further.”

The two-month event includes 26 new and returning lanterns, lightboxes, projections and glowing installations largely created by local artists. The goal of organizers is to amass a collection of original artwork to be shown annually, while making space for new temporary pieces each year, Pensato says.

“I’m really excited that this is continuing to go forward. It’s very rare to be able to contribute something new to the city and everybody involved, I think, is very happy and energized by that,” he says.

“It’s very rare to be able to contribute something new to the city and everybody involved, I think, is very happy and energized by that”– David Pensato

The BIZ is responsible for bringing local businesses on board as host venues. Locations for this year’s festival have shifted along with departures from and arrivals to the neighbourhood. The former home of the Haberdashery at 84 Albert St., for example, has been turned into a candlelit poetry stage with live readings set to take place weekly beginning Feb. 2.

The artwork itself is curated by Manufacturing Entertainment, the Winnipeg Arts Council and Artspace.

“One of the things that we were very geared towards was not only a diversity of mediums, but also a diversity of perspectives,” says Artspace executive director Eric Plamondon.

“The Exchange District is and should be known as a valued historic district, but it’s also very synonymous with a colonial period of history.”

While there was no requirement to respond to the City of Winnipeg’s 150th anniversary, which takes place this year, history features prominently in many of the artworks, Plamondon says.

Examples include Colonial Cartoons: Nanabush Across Time, a four-panel comic by artist Kaine McEwan, which depicts the Anishinaabe trickster spirit telling stories of urbanization and modern Indigenous issues; and wiigwaas gikendamowin by KC Adams, a lantern set to be installed at city hall inspired by Indigenous technology past and present.

Plamondon himself has created an entry into the category. Along with designer Joe Kalturnyk, he will be installing temporary artistic scaffolding around the war monument outside the Centennial Concert Hall dedicated to Canadian militia members who fought against the North-West Resistance led by Louis Riel.

Titled Redaction, the piece aims to call attention to the celebration of colonialism prominently displayed on Main Street.

“It’s a piece that’s been unchallenged in a public space for 140 years. That’s the magic of art; it can offer a counternarrative, or a more complex narrative in spaces that we know very well,” Plamondon says.

“There’s space for history to evolve.”

Lights on the Exchange-Allumez le Quartier is free to attend; visit exchangedistrict.org for locations and descriptions of the featured artwork.

The Winnipeg Arts Council is hosting guided walking tours on Feb. 2 and March 1. Visit winnipegarts.ca to reserve a spot.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

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Artist Spotlight

Annie Bannatyne stands high above the bustling street wearing an embroidered skirt and cracking a long whip, its tail looping into an infinity symbol. Text underneath the image reads “Lii Faam Michif Mashkawishiwak pi Tipeemishowak.”

The Michif phrase, which translates to “Métis women are strong and free/own themselves,” is also the title of Claire Johnston’s glowing rooftop art piece at the southwest corner of Main Street and Bannatyne Avenue. The lantern was commissioned by the Winnipeg Art Council for last year’s inaugural Lights on the Exchange festival.

“I’ve always felt this closeness to Annie Bannatyne,” says Johnston, an autistic Red River Métis beadwork artist. “She’s one of my favourite historic Métis women.”

In the year since the lantern’s installation, its whip-wielding subject has become even more iconic for the Winnipeg-based artist.

Bannatyne was a well-educated philanthropist living in the Red River Settlement during the 19th century. While her fundraising efforts led to the creation of the Winnipeg General Hospital, she’s remembered as a trailblazer for an entirely different reason.

In response to disparaging remarks about Métis women written in a letter published by a national newspaper, Bannatyne found revenge at the end of a horsewhip. When the writer, a Canadian nationalist named Charles Mair, stopped by the family’s general store to collect his mail he was whipped and publicly shamed by Bannatyne.

News of the confrontation spread fast and far, eventually reaching the ear of Louis Riel, who saw the event as an inspirational act of resistance, according to a biography compiled by the Louis Riel Institute.

Johnston, 27, first heard Bannatyne’s story in a beading circle and immediately felt a sense of kinship.

“I’m fiery and I’m super opinionated, and there’s definitely (some truth) there about Métis women being very independent and strong,” she says.

When Johnston was approached by the Winnipeg Arts Council to submit a proposal for a lantern design, she jumped at the chance to shine a light on her legacy and call attention to the Métis history throughout the Exchange District. (Bannatyne Avenue was named for Annie and her husband Andrew, a politician and successful businessman; and nearby McDermot Avenue is a nod to her father, Andrew McDermot, an influential fur trader.)

“When people drive past Bannatyne, I want them to know who the Bannatynes were and are. I wish that a lot of these places would be remembered outside of the colonial narrative, because there’s been amazing things happening here for a long time that haven’t been told by us,” Johnston says.

In creating Lii Faam Michif Mashkawishiwak pi Tipeemishowak, Johnston enlisted family members and elders to assist with the design. While colourful beads and thread — rather than line drawing — are her preferred medium, historic research is foundational to her art practice.

Over the last year, the lantern project has elicited new real-life friendships and revealed new elements of Johnston’s own history.

“It wasn’t until today that I realized I was related to her,” Johnston says, explaining that a relative had married a member of Bannatyne’s family long ago. “It’s just really special, all the different connections that have come out of it.”