Curated memories Museum gift shops choose inventory wisely, fill pockets of creators By: AV Kitching Posted: 4:57 PM CDT Monday, Mar. 24, 2025

Museum and art gallery gifts shops are a lucrative business for government-funded public spaces.

The revenue these boutiques generate provides vital support to the organizations they are attached to, often supplementing funding for programming, community activities and collection maintenance.

Whether you are buying a $1,200 original work of art, a $180 backpack or a $30 pencil case, a proportion of what you spend not only goes towards the care of these cultural institutions, it also directly supports the work of artists and makers.

At ShopWAG, WAG-Qaumajuq’s retail arm, your dollar, more often than not, goes into pockets of Canadian creatives.

“One of the things that sets our gallery shop apart from other gallery shops or civic art gallery shops is that 80 per cent of what we sell is handmade by a Canadian or an Indigenous artist here in Canada,” says Sherri Van Went, manager of retail operations and partnerships.

And making a profit, while nice, is not a priority; in the last fiscal year (April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024), ShopWAG banked $50,000.

“That revenue goes towards championing artists, caring for more than 27,000 works of art in its collections and providing programming resources,” Van Went says. “We are most proud of the work we do to support local and northern artists.”

The shop’s sales and initiatives during the same time period generated more than $726,000 for artists from Manitoba, Nunavut, and across Inuit Nunangat and the rest of Canada.

The shop tries to maintain a 40 per cent margin. To put it simply, when you buy a $100 item, $60 goes straight to the artist and ShopWAG takes $40.

But that’s not a one-size-fits-all rule.

“That is typically how we work, but it’s not across the board,” Van Went says. “If you are used to getting 100 per cent of the proceeds, then we might start from a 30 per cent profit margin.

“Our approach is different because we are in a gallery, selling unique things; we want to make it work. These are one-offs, they are pieces of art and so we approach it in a different way.”

Not everything at ShopWAG is precious and handmade. For mass-produced items like books, children’s presents and creative supplies, there is a 50 per cent profit margin.

There are different routes to becoming a vendor — you can apply in person or via an online form on the website, or someone from the team will contact makers whose works they have seen on Instagram or at local markets.

When it comes to Inuit art, Van Went buys directly from the artists or works with co-operatives such Canadian Arctic Producers, the art marketing arm of Arctic Co-operatives Limited.

She also goes on buying trips to Toronto, attending trade shows where she meets suppliers and visiting showrooms.

“I might visit Dorset Fine Arts, a showroom in Toronto where all the works produced in the Kinngait Studios in Nunavut come south for distribution to commercial galleries,” she explains.

Buying can take place during Crafted, the annual juried market featuring artists and makers from Manitoba, Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Nunatsiavut and Nunavik. Van Went uses the market as a route to establish relationships with artists she’s never met, and to purchase unsold items of interest to sell in the shop.

Ongoing and upcoming exhibitions also feed into the decision-making process — on sale are Lita Fontaine’s limited-edition prints in conjunction with her Winyan exhibition, and books chosen by the curators of Threads of Kin and Belonging to support its themes.

Van Went is working on a line that ties in with the gallery’s upcoming Abraham Anghik Ruben exhibition in May.

There are times — few and far between — when things work in the opposite direction.

A beaded cigarette in an ashtray with fur and a doily by artist and previous Crafted vendor Candace Neumann is currently on exhibit.

“We brought Candace’s work into the shop, the curator saw it and wanted to buy it for the gallery. It went through an art acquisition selection committee process and became part of the gallery’s permanent collection. And then another curator decided it needs to be part of the Threads of Kin and Belonging exhibition,” Van Went explains.

“When something like this happens — when you think something is beautiful and you pick it and then someone from the acquisition team agrees with you — these are points of pride for me,” she says.

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If gift shops should reflect the mandate of the spaces they are in, then the Boutique at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights is held to a higher standard than most.

Its principles must align with those that form the backbone of the museum.

Before the museum enters into a business relationship with vendors, makers and suppliers have to fill in a comprehensive application form. It’s a formal document exploring the entire value chain of the product, to ensure there are no practices of exploitation or maltreatment of employees, and that all raw materials going into their goods come from an ethical background.

“It takes a lot of work and care to make sure we have a deep relationship with our partners, vendors and suppliers,” says Sarah Schwendemann, the museum’s director of partnerships and visitor growth.

“We have always worked to source things ethically and with the utmost responsibility, in keeping with our commitment to human rights.”

Merchandise falls into more conventional gift shop categories — everything from bags, books and candles to sketchpads, soaps and cheeseboards.

Items on sale don’t necessarily have to be made in Manitoba or Canada, although the focus is to start from a “hyper-regional” level.

Over the last six months the team has been working to reduce the number of items on sale, trimming the food and beverage section to highlight products connected to human-rights initiatives in Canada.

For instance, Peace by Chocolate, a Syrian-Canadian owned company based in Nova Scotia, donates three to five per cent of its profits to the Peace on Earth Society.

“We want to focus on food items that have a story to tell, about the people and their story behind their product and how they are giving back to initiatives that are building a better future,” Schwendemann says.

Currently, there are 27 Manitoba-based artists and makers whose works are available in the shop, including The All Human Beings journal produced by local company Fresh Emblem, glass art by Melanie Halprin and jewelry designed by Johanna Brierley, both Winnipeggers.

However, on the flip side, artwork of iconic Winnipeg landmarks — which you can buy in mug, print or tea-towel form — is designed by an artist based in London, England.

“U.K.-based artist Julia Gash has done this artistic treatment for cities around the globe,” Schwendemann explains. “We commissioned this art, and we are excited to have Winnipeg represented in her world-renowned collection. They are very popular, especially with travellers who like to buy one in each city they visit.”

Mass produced items such as T-shirts are supplied by Montreal-based Black Maple Trading Co., which sources fabric from Mexico or Bangladesh to make its apparel.

“This is an example of us understanding our supply chain,” Schwendemann says. “The T-shirts are manufactured in Mexico; we have all the vendor compliance forms and a really deep understanding of the ethics behind the T-shirt manufacturing company that Black Maple uses to produce the shirts there.”

The Boutique has to appeal to local shoppers as well as tourists, retail specialist Rick Plaseski says.

“One of our primary goals is to echo the museum itself and the stories that we tell in the museum,” he says. “However, we have a little bit of a focus on gift as well. We have tourists from all over the world who are always looking for a compact takeaway, so we have things with images of the building, because a lot of people come to see the architecture of the building as well as the content inside.”

Nearly 16,000 purchases were made in the last fiscal year, generating a total revenue from sales of $581,000, which goes towards operating costs and museum programming; the CMHR does not release information about its profit margin.

“Every dollar the boutique earns goes back into our programming, our content and advancing our human rights,” Schwendemann says of the store’s business model. “We look at it as our own internal social enterprise that is generating revenue to then further our educational programs, and content development and to support the other teams at the museum as well.”

Among the 1,420 “active products” in the boutique are a number of items manufactured in China — a country not known for its robust human rights record, having recently executed four Canadians for “drug-related crimes.”

Black mugs with Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in script by Winnipeg artist Kal Barteski, are made in China, as are sketchpads, and bowls featuring Indigenous art by artists from Coast Salish and Gitxsan.

“We require suppliers to verify their supply chains meet or exceed the standards set out in our ethical purchasing policy, including fair wages, safe working environments and a prohibition on child labour, regardless of where they are manufactured,” Amanda Gaudes, the museum’s media relations specialist says. “Where possible we seek out products that are verified by third-party organizations, such as Fairtrade Canada, as well as products that are designed and made locally or made in Canada.

“Like many, in light of recent events, we are evaluating our offerings to ensure we are sourcing as much as possible from Canada.”

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When visitors leave Manitoba Museum’s gift shop they will be taking a little bit of the province home with them. Staff are at work commissioning keepsakes to reflect the museum’s vast collections of Manitoba minerals, mammals and butterflies.

The shop proper has been out of action for the last seven months, is currently under hoarding as it undergoes its transformation part of the museum’s comprehensive renovation project, which started in August 2024.

The proposed reopening is supposed to take place in July, although that’s very much in the hands of the construction professionals.

Right now, visitors are confined to a very limited number of item; the rest of the museum’s stock sits packed up in boxes in a dimly lit room.

The museum is becoming increasingly focused on sourcing merchandise that aligns with its values,

“Merchandise must reflect the museum’s aims towards economic reconciliation, supporting First Nations, Inuit and Métis artisans, makers, and manufacturers in reaching new audiences,” says Dorota Blumczyńska, Manitoba Museum CEO.

“These gifts will not only remind visitors of their visit to the Manitoba Museum, they will support Indigenous businesses as they honour their own stories and traditions.”

Rhiannon Leier Blacher, director of marketing, sales and visitor experience, says the main focus is local.

“When we are talking about buying Canadian, we are looking at buying Manitoban, bringing it back down to the local as much as possible,” she says.

Another big must is for stock to align with exhibitions, collections and the main galleries — even when it comes down to merchandise such as stuffed animals.

“When you see stuffed animals, they won’t be elephants and giraffes, they will be animals that represent the ones in the museum. We have a lot of bison, dinosaurs, grizzly bears, polar bears and foxes,” she says.

The team is sourcing toy cougars to tie in with the new permanent Manitoba’s Big Cat exhibition, giving kids a way to remember their visit to the museum.

Products are picked to build on the knowledge gained from exhibitions. Children, the shop’s top buyers, often purchase lower-priced items; these still have to fulfil the educational remit.

“There is a huge science and learning aspect to the shop,” Leier Blacher explains. “We try to focus on that and ensure children are learning about the different Indigenous languages, learning about the stars, learning about animals, leaning about natural history.”

The shop aims for a 50 per cent profit margin on all products. However, margins are higher for smaller, mass-produced items and lower for local products; Leier Blacher says it all balances out in the end.

Total revenue figures are skewed, since construction began last year, with sales dropping significantly when the shop moved to the online platform.

Any revenue the museum shop generates is channelled back into general operations, as well as providing additional support for its Access for All initiative.

“The vision for the Museum Shop is to be a visitor amenity rather than being a substantial revenue-generating operation,” she says. “We are not here to make a profit.”

av.kitching@freepress.mb.ca