What’s up: Eliza Reid, REDress book launch, Winnipeg Boys’ Choir, film festival

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/05/2025 (515 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Eliza Reid book launch

• McNally Robinson Booksellers, 1120 Grant Ave.
• Sunday, 2 p.m.
• Free

On a small island off the south coast of Iceland, the Canadian deputy ambassador to the Nordic country has been murdered, and many suspect her boss, the ambassador, might have had something to do with it. It’s up to the ambassador’s wife to sort out who’s behind the killing — and hopefully save her marriage in the process.

So goes the plot of Eliza Reid’s first novel, Death on the Island, published April 29 by Simon & Schuster. The Canadian-born Reid knows a thing or two about diplomatic types in Iceland — from 2016 to 2024 she was the “first lady” of Iceland while her husband, Gudni Johannesson, served as president.

Death on the Island is Reid’s second book; it follows her 2022 debut non-fiction work Secrets of the Sprakkar: Iceland’s Extraordinary Women and How They Are Changing the World.

The launch of Reid’s latest takes place Sunday at 2 p.m., and is co-presented by the Consulate General of Iceland in Winnipeg, the Icelandic Canadian Frón and Lögberg-Heimskringla.

While in the province, Reid will also speak at the Icelandic National League of North America’s convention, which opens today and runs through to Sunday. (Reid launches Death on the Island in Gimli on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Church at 76 2 Ave.)

Reid will be joined in conversation by former CBC personality Shelagh Rogers, and the event will also be streamed on McNally Robinson’s YouTube channel.

Buy on mcnallyrobinson.com

— Ben Sigurdson

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Reclaiming Power and Place: Indigenous Women and Their Rights to Safety and Justice & REDress book launch

• Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Level 2 Gallery
• Opens Saturday; book launch Sunday
• Click here for hours and admission

In 2010, Métis artist Jaime Black-Morsette created the REDress Project, a striking public art installation in which red dresses are hung up in visible places as tangible reminders of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people.

The project has been installed all over Canada and the U.S. Since 2014, a version has been on view at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and is one of the most photographed exhibits in the Canadian Journeys gallery.

Now, the red dresses are part of a new exhibition called Reclaiming Power and Place: Indigenous Women and Their Rights to Safety and Justice, a collaboration between Black-Morsette and Inninew/Anishinaabe/British visual artist KC Adams that will remain on view until April 2030.

The new installation features seven red dresses modified by Black-Morsette — including one white dress to represent Sky Woman, a figure central to the story of creation in many Indigenous communities — set against a backdrop created by Adams that incorporates the Indigenous art of birchbark biting.

The new installation centres women as keepers of tradition, culture and knowledge, as well as creators of life, expanding upon past themes of victimhood and loss to those of reclamation and resurgence.

On Sunday, May 4, from 5:30 to 7 p.m., the exhibition will host the book launch for REDress: Art, Action and the Power of Presence, an anthology edited by Black-Morsette featuring the voices of Indigenous women, elders, grassroots community activists, artists, academics and family members who have been affected by the MMIWG epidemic.

Admission to the book launch is free; register for your spot by emailing publicity@portageandmainpress.com. The museum also offers free admission on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Indigenous people always are admitted free.

— Jen Zoratti

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Celebrating a century of song

• Crescent Fort Rouge United Church, 525 Wardlaw Ave.
• Sunday, 3 p.m.
• Tickets $25 available online

The Winnipeg Boys’ Choir concludes its centennial season Sunday with its spring concert All the Way Home, featuring singers and artists from across the decades, conducted by Albert Bergen, Carolyn Boyes and Spencer Duncanson.

The 100-strong choir will perform 17 songs, including Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic Edelweiss; John Rutter’s For the Beauty of the Earth; Sanctus by Gabriel Faure; The Maple Leaf Forever by Alexander Muir, arr. Ron Smail); and Sarah Quartel’s All the Way Home, during the hour-long concert.

— AV Kitching

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Books for those behind bars

• Today to May 31
• Various locations
• More information here

Doing some spring cleaning? Consider donating your excess reading material to help stock prison bookshelves across the province.

The prison libraries committee of the Manitoba Library Association is hosting a month-long book drive prior to its annual spring fundraising sale. New-ish and gently used books can be dropped off at the Millennium Library (251 Donald St.); St. James-Assiniboia Library (1910 Portage Ave.); Louis Riel Library (1168 Dakota St.); St. Vital Library (6 Fermor Ave.); Eadha Bakery (577 Ellice Ave.); and Thyme Café (268 Tache Ave.) during business hours.

If you would like to donate more than two bags or boxes of books, contact the organizers in advance (bookandbakesalewinnipeg@gmail.com), as many of the dropoff locations have limited space.

Desired genres include fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, children’s, young adult, how-tos, biographies and books by Indigenous authors.

Textbooks, magazines, encyclopedias and old or worn books will not be accepted.

Donations will be placed in prisons and sold at the June 14 book and bake sale in support of the prison libraries committee and the Bar None Prison Rideshare Project. The location of the sale is yet to be announced.

— Eva Wasney

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Manitoba Emerging Filmmakers Festival

• The Handsome Daughter, 61 Sherbrook St.
• Friday, 7 p.m.
• Admission $10

We may want to give a closer look to Strawberry Punch’s crimson ingredients.

As well as being one of Winnipeg’s top punk bands, Strawberry Punch has a commanding actress in singer Danielle McDonald, who stars in the Winnipeg vampire short Rot.

McDonald plays a vampire who has kicked her favourite juice, but ultimately gives into the temptation to start biting again. The black-and-white film ends with a gothy musical number — because why not?

Rot is one of a handful of films showing at Manitoba’s Emerging Filmmakers Fest on Friday. Its filmmaker, Caden Nikkel, also helps co-ordinate the festival with Taryn Edgeworth, Kieran Peters and Matthew Shoup.

This year’s fest features 10 shorts, and includes such titles as Costanza’s Loop (Noah Riel Baldwin) and Panopticon (Stephen White and Levi Cook).

— Conrad Sweatman

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