One man’s trash… is another man’s art career

Pioneering installation artist Ken Gregory ‘humbled’ by Award of Distinction

Advertisement

Advertise with us

Pioneering sound and media artist Ken Gregory has won this year’s Manitoba Arts Award of Distinction presented by the Manitoba Arts Council.

Read this article for free:


or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Subscribe and receive a limited-edition Free Press branded hat or tote.

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $205*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/05/2025 (493 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Pioneering sound and media artist Ken Gregory has won this year’s Manitoba Arts Award of Distinction presented by the Manitoba Arts Council.

The Winnipegger, whose work brings a certain “mad scientist” wit and rigour to the installation environment, is widely noted as having shaped generations of local artists.

One of his best-known pieces is his playful sound installation 12 Motor Bells (2004) — where the clangs of 12 old fire alarms become lulling tones that respond to viewers’ presence — which now enriches the National Gallery of Canada’s permanent collection.

Coycet La Mort (2020) is a spider-like robot with a dog’s skull for a head.

Coycet La Mort (2020) is a spider-like robot with a dog’s skull for a head.

Over his 30-year career, the 65-year-old artist has also played a formative role in such institutional mainstays of the local tech art scene as Send + Receive: A Festival of Sound and Video Pool Media Arts Centre.

“When I was getting started in the ’80s, other artists handed me the artist’s hat and I didn’t think it fit,” says Gregory by email. “But I started participating in the rich and diverse art and music community, a community that was accepting, supportive and friendly. This environment allowed me to develop.”

“I now wear the hat proudly.”

Accomplishments like those mentioned made him a shoo-in, said his nominators, for the $30,000 prize recognizing outstanding artistic achievement and impact on the province’s arts community.

“Gregory is an ‘artist’s artist,’ who is held in the highest esteem by his peers,” wrote Winnipeg-born artists Daniel Barrow and Clint Enns, his nominators. “His practice often involves a form of creative problem-solving, transforming discarded and abandoned material into inspired artworks. He is always quick to share his techniques and offer creative solutions to other artists.”

It’s said that one man’s trash is another’s treasure.

Supplied
                                Artist Ken Gregory specializes in transforming discarded items into works of art.

Supplied

Artist Ken Gregory specializes in transforming discarded items into works of art.

And while Gregory may not always restore “utility” to the discarded objects and gadgetry he lovingly hacks and works with, he gives it a curious new life treasured by his fans and audiences.

In Coycet La Mort (2020), the artist fashions a spider-like robot with blades for legs and a dog’s skull for a head. In Sun Sucker (2020), Gregory has the audacity to add even more buzzing pests to the outdoors — only these charming insect-like audio organisms, powered by solar energy, can’t bite.

In 2004 — the same year his work was the subject of a book by Robert Enright and published by Plug In Gallery — Border Crossings magazine observed that viewers often described his exhibits as a sort of futuristic zoo, “filled with chirping, shrieking, humming noise emanating from exotic creatures.”

Although Gregory is also capable of striking elegance and beauty: his large-scale kinetic sound sculpture Wind Coil Sound Flow (2009), as pretty to the eye as the ear, turns wind into music with an instrument made of wires, coils and electronics.

“Ken’s work represents a thoughtful, often poetic engagement with both technology and the natural world,” says Katarina Kupca, chair of the Manitoba Arts Council, an arm’s-length agency of the Province of Manitoba. “Ken is an artist of the highest calibre and the impact of his work in sound and media art is immeasurable, not just in Manitoba, but across the country.”

For all these accolades, Gregory thanks the curators, jurors, gallery directors and peers who “took a risk” having him participate in their programs.

In pieces such as 2009’s Wind Coil Sound Flow, Gregory’s art combines both visual and audible appeal.

In pieces such as 2009’s Wind Coil Sound Flow, Gregory’s art combines both visual and audible appeal.

“I’m honoured, humbled, proud (to receive this award),” he adds.

Documentation of many of Gregory’s works can be seen on his YouTube channel, Cheap Meat Dreams and Acorns. Previous recipients of the Manitoba Arts Award of Distinction include Jennine Krauchi (2024), Di Brandt (2023), Daina Warren (2022), and Alan Greyeyes (2020).

conrad.sweatman@freepress.mb.ca

Conrad Sweatman

Conrad Sweatman
Reporter

Conrad Sweatman is an arts reporter and feature writer. Before joining the Free Press full-time in 2024, he worked in the U.K. and Canadian cultural sectors and freelanced for outlets including The Walrus, VICE and Prairie Fire. Read more about Conrad.

Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.

Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.

Report Error Submit a Tip

More Stories

Northern First Nation calls for voluntary ban of moose hunting as numbers dwindle

Eva Wasney 5 minute read Preview

Northern First Nation calls for voluntary ban of moose hunting as numbers dwindle

Eva Wasney 5 minute read Updated: 4:19 PM CDT

A northern Manitoba First Nation is calling for a voluntary closure of moose hunting in its traditional territory to protect the declining population and respond to what it sees is a lack of provincial intervention.

On Friday, Misipawistik Cree Nation issued a plea urging hunters to abstain from harvesting moose in provincial Game Hunting Area 10 — a 10,000-square-kilometre region of boreal forest north of Grand Rapids. The request applies to this year’s moose-hunting seasons, which open Monday.

According to the province’s 2025 aerial big-game survey, an estimated 281 moose reside in the area, roughly 60 of which are bull moose. That’s down from an estimated 346 moose in 2013, which the survey describes as a “relatively stable population” over the past decade.

This year, 124 licences and 62 bull moose tags were made available in the region during Manitoba’s annual hunting draw.

Read
Updated: 4:19 PM CDT

Manitoba abandoning spring, fall clock changes

Carol Sanders 8 minute read Preview

Manitoba abandoning spring, fall clock changes

Carol Sanders 8 minute read Updated: 8:48 AM CDT

Time’s up for the time change in Manitoba.

Manitobans won’t be setting their clocks back an hour in November. The province has decided to permanently stay on daylight time after surveying residents on the twice annual clock adjustment.

“We heard from Manitobans loud and clear — no more changing the clocks in Manitoba,” Premier Wab Kinew said in a news release Thursday.

Most of the 72,000 votes submitted in an online EngageMB survey — 92 per cent — said they would like to see the practice end. The survey asked if they preferred earlier sunrises in winter with standard time or the later sunsets in summer with daylight time. More than half of survey participants (58 per cent) indicated a preference to stay on permanent daylight time; 34 per cent voted to eliminate the time change but stay on standard time.

Read
Updated: 8:48 AM CDT

‘She was looking to destroy me’: convicted harasser faces new charges

Dean Pritchard 6 minute read Preview

‘She was looking to destroy me’: convicted harasser faces new charges

Dean Pritchard 6 minute read Yesterday at 6:54 PM CDT

When Agnieszka Ciochon-Newton moved into the 55-plus apartment building on Stradbrook Avenue last year, she came across as “timid, soft-spoken and sensitive,” said building manager Tanya Owen.

Little did Owen know the meek-looking 58-year-old woman would soon turn her life and the lives of many of her tenants upside down and threaten her career and family.

“She was looking to destroy me for a simple tenant disagreement,” Owen said Thursday.

Court records show Ciochon-Newton was arrested earlier this month and charged with seven counts of criminal harassment, two counts of uttering threats and one count each of fraud, breaking and entering, attempting to obstruct justice, intimidation of a justice official, mischief and defamatory libel.

Read
Yesterday at 6:54 PM CDT

Big time roster turnovers reflected in Rifles play

Joshua Frey-Sam 6 minute read Preview

Big time roster turnovers reflected in Rifles play

Joshua Frey-Sam 6 minute read 2:07 PM CDT

The Winnipeg Rifles needed to get out of their own way.

That was the consensus in the junior football club’s locker room after it opened the Canadian Junior Football League season with four straight losses before breaking through with a 37-23 home win over the Edmonton Huskies last weekend.

The Rifles kept their playoff hopes within reach with three games remaining in the regular season. If nothing else, it injected some much-needed confidence into a group that believes it has the talent to compete with the rest of the Prairie Conference, but needs to stop shooting itself in the foot.

“It was definitely a sense of urgency. It was definitely a must-need win, and especially a lot of our other games, we would be in the game, and then we would kind of start beating ourselves almost,” said Jarome Penner, the club’s leading receiver.

Read
2:07 PM CDT

Day 1 of Jets training camp in the books with pairings essentially cemented

Ken Wiebe 7 minute read Preview

Day 1 of Jets training camp in the books with pairings essentially cemented

Ken Wiebe 7 minute read Yesterday at 6:08 PM CDT

Nearly six minutes into his question-and-answer session, Scott Arniel took a welcome detour from the news of the day.

After exhausting the discussion around the goalie who wasn’t in training camp, the head coach of the Winnipeg Jets finally got a query about the line combinations and defensive pairings that were unveiled in training camp.

And unlike past years, when exhibition games were more frequent and the training camp wasn’t this condensed, Arniel conceded these groupings were intentional and were likely staying together for some time.

The expansion to an 84-game regular season brings with it a reduction to four pre-season games and a much shorter training camp, which could limit the amount of experimentation that Arniel can do during the next two weeks.

Read
Yesterday at 6:08 PM CDT

Kinew delivered what most of us wanted; now we’ll have to deal with the consequences

Dan Lett 5 minute read Preview

Kinew delivered what most of us wanted; now we’ll have to deal with the consequences

Dan Lett 5 minute read Updated: 8:43 AM CDT

Premier Wab Kinew has decided to adopt permanent daylight savings time, which means a permanent end to the spring forward, fall back tradition of adjusting our clocks. And absolutely no one is surprised.

Read
Updated: 8:43 AM CDT