Art is afoot

They’re almost ready to be traversed, touched and skipped on: four blocks of street paintings from Carlton to Garry Street on Graham, including two playable murals.

The murals are part of Reimagining Graham Avenue, which sees the former transit corridor transformed into a pedestrian-first corridor.

“There’s going to be a giant parcheesi game right in front of the police services,” says Karin Kliewer, a senior planner at the City of Winnipeg. “And I don’t even know how to play parcheesi, but I’m definitely gonna learn!”

Local artists began paving the streets with strokes on Canada Day and have being painting at a brisk clip — they’re expected to be wrapped up this weekend.

Muralists include Marc Kuegle, Alex Plante, Kal Barteski, Kale Sheppard, Laura Lee Harasym, Mike Zastre, James Culleton, Architects at Play and artistic lead Takashi Iwasaki.

The mark of Iwasaki’s unmistakeable style — something like an extra whimsical Kandinsky or Miró for the video-game age — can be found on murals from Winnipeg to Churchill and beyond.

He oversees the murals’ artistic direction and collaborates with both the city and project lead Stéphane Dorge, an organizer with CoolStreetsWPG, on the murals’ logistics and execution.

“I like people to think of rhythm as they walk by. Once they look at the image, it’s not very stagnant,” says Iwasaki.

The artist is also intrigued by people’s reactions on social media to the emerging murals, saying some older Facebook users have left skeptical comments, while younger Instagram users are applauding the new works and changes on Graham Avenue.

“It’s a sort of casual survey of what kind of people exist around me… On Facebook, I think people say it’s waste of taxpayers’ money,” says Iwasaki. “But it’s interesting: it’s all funded by Bloomberg, the U.S. philanthropy organization, so nothing of our tax money has been spent on the paint.”

Winnipeg is one of only 10 cities in North America selected for Bloomberg Philanthropies’ US$100,000 Asphalt Art Initiative, after the Public Works and the Planning, Property and Development departments at the City of Winnipeg submitted an application. This funding is one reason why Reimagining Graham Avenue is as colourful as it is.

“It’s not often where that scale of a (mural) project can happen this fast,” Dorge says.

“I hope this isn’t the full catalyst, though. But I hope this… spurs prioritization from developers to focus on rebuilding (the) area and making it more vibrant.”

It’s been an eventful couple of weeks for Winnipeg’s downtown.

Reimagining Graham Avenue coincides with the opening of Portage and Main to pedestrians, as well as Winnipeg’s newly implemented transit model — all of which, while serving distinct goals, aim to transform the downtown into a more walkable social hub.

Many significant planning initiatives in Manitoba’s history have been met with polarized reactions at first, even if some — like Duff’s Ditch in the 1960s, the Downtown Skywalk System in 1970s-80s, and The Forks redevelopment in the 1980s-90s — are now all but taken for granted as key pieces of infrastructure.

Iwasaki says he hasn’t experienced any of this negativity at the street level.

“People are curious. They always ask, ‘What is this? Why is this happening?’ Or it’s just a nice comment of, ‘Oh, that looks nice,’” he says. “No one yells at us, especially with the (reflective) vest. We look like city workers. They have some sort of respect when you wear the safety jacket.”

“I think we are very critical as Winnipeggers, but this is a first step in creating the downtown that we deserve, which has a lot of beauty and a lot of places for people to go and gather,” Kliewer says.

“I hope that people walk down this. I hope that people walk down Portage and Main,” she adds. “I hope people walk through The Exchange… and say, ‘Yes, this makes sense. Yes, I want to be here. I want to walk here, bike here. I want to make art here and enjoy it.’”

conrad.sweatman@freepress.mb.ca