Floating Gallery founder Peter Tittenberger left lasting impact on Winnipeg’s arts community

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This article was published 07/06/2024 (823 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Peter Tittenberger wasn’t one to seek out the spotlight. In fact, the self-effacing artist likely would’ve balked at the idea of a story about his legacy.

Tittenberger was a photographer, ceramicist and sculptor who fostered community within Winnipeg’s art scene through a lifelong pursuit of excellence. He died on June 3 at the age of 72 due to complications from multiple myeloma.

Born in Winnipeg, he attended Garden City Collegiate and graduated from the University of Manitoba with a philosophy degree. He landed a job with the Manitoba Mincome project — a guaranteed annual income study initiated by the provincial NDP government in the 1970s — where he met his wife Daria, a fellow staff member.

“I recognized right off the bat that he was going to be an important person in my life,” Daria says, adding she was taken by his authenticity, creativity, sense of humour and intellect.

“He was just the perfect man for me.”

The pair courted casually, going on dates to “lumber yards and mushroom farms.” They married within the year and settled in the Kildonans, where they raised two daughters.

Tittenberger was a talented carpenter with a budding interest in photography. Daria encouraged him to pursue the latter and he enrolled in the photography program at Red River College Polytechnic.

He joined the University of Winnipeg’s media services department as a staff photographer, all the while cultivating his own creative practice. Tittenberger focused his lens on Winnipeg’s urban landscape and exhibited his work locally and nationally.

In 1981, he founded the Floating Gallery — a transient, artist-led organization that promoted photography as an artform by providing local photographers with exhibition space at various public venues around the city.

“Photography had a certain energy at that time. This was his way of bringing photography to that next level,” longtime friend and fellow photographer Brock Hamilton says.

Hamilton recalls Tittenberger as a disciplined creative who held himself and his interests to a high standard. He was also exceedingly generous and kind.

“He was a little austere at times, he could be very matter-of-factish and maybe a little glib, but under all of that was an incredibly emotional, kind person,” Hamilton says.

Floating Gallery eventually set down roots in the Exchange District and is now known as Platform Centre for Digital and Photographic and Digital Arts.

Tittenberger moved on to the U of M, where he provided tech support and helped develop long-distance web-based learning technology used by faculty and students.

He travelled extensively in the role, sharing the technology with universities around the world. Daria joined on trips to Africa, Asia and South America. The couple travelled as often as they could and spent the last decade wintering in Tucson, Ariz.

Post-retirement, he returned to the university to pursue a fine arts degree in ceramics.

“He wanted to do a more hands-on kind of art. It was an opportunity to immerse himself in the topic and be surrounded by like-minded individuals,” Daria says, adding she was in no way surprised by her husband’s desire to further his education.

Tittenberger — still an avid amateur carpenter — built himself a backyard ceramics studio where he created clay sculptures and vessels resembling otherworldly sea creatures. (He also built a family cabin near Victoria Beach along with Daria and enlisted friends.)

Much of his ceramic work was inspired by his involvement with Neurocraft, a project that paired local artists with neuroscientists. Tittenberger’s collaborator specialized in fear and anxiety, leading him to explore his own fears of the deep, dark ocean and, later, the depths of human temptations.

He also spent a period making sculptures from piano innards and objects found during flâneuring expeditions. Flâneuring is a meditative practice that encourages urban exploration through aimless wandering. Tittenberger eventually walked every street and back lane in Winnipeg — picking up discarded furniture as he went — over several years.

“They keep on adding new suburbs, so there was a point where he had to put a stop to it,” Daria says with a laugh.

In 2018, Tittenberger joined the Manitoba Craft Council board at the request of friend and board president Keith Oliver. The pair met playing rec baseball and started a lunch club that ran for 37 years.

“We needed smart, capable people. He had a clear head, educated opinion … and Peter was one of those guys who would step up to help,” says Oliver, a sculptor and furniture-maker.

Tittenberger served on the board until 2021 and was involved in many fundraising efforts. He helped set up the C2 Centre for Craft and participated in many solo and group shows at the downtown gallery as an artist, curator and juror.

Tittenberger was a scholar of many subjects and someone who could be counted on to work hard without complaint.

“He was a steadying presence,” Oliver says. “And he was a really decent guy.”

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

X: @evawasney