What’s up: Christmas market, Kanata Classics, Forbidden Colours, Portage and Main, PUP

Winnipeg Christmas Market

• RBC Convention Centre, 375 York Ave.
• Today to Sunday
• Tickets $12 to $15 available online

There are exactly four weeks until Christmas Day.

Apologies for the jump scare. If you’re feeling seasonally panicked, the second-ever Winnipeg Christmas Market is here to assist.

The four-day event is a craft market and winter wonderland experience rolled into one sprawling, sparkly package.

Shoppers looking to keep their cash north of the border will find more than 130 artisans selling Canadian-made products, as well as festive snacks and drinks from Nomad Box Bar, the Wagyu Wagon, the Bannock Factory and other Manitoba food vendors.

The convention centre hall will be filled with live music from local artists, such as Onna Lou, Alex Maher, Gabriela Ocejo and Joe Curtis. Market-goers can also take in workshops on sewing, landscape painting and mixology.

And, of course, Santa will be on site offering free printed photos and digital copies for families seeking an alternative to the mall.

Tickets allow entry to any day of the Winnipeg Christmas Market. Family passes are available for $39.

— Eva Wasney

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Kanata Classics launch

• McNally Robinson Booksellers, Gant Park, 1120 Grant Ave.
• Wednesday, 7 p.m.
• Free

To mark the 10th anniversary of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission Report, publisher McClelland & Stewart launched a new imprint highlighting both Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers whose work, sometimes overlooked, reflects the country’s diversity of literary voices.

Kanata Classics launched in July with the first six releases featuring previously released works of fiction and non-fiction, each coming with a new introduction and packaging. On Wednesday at 7 p.m., two of the featured authors, as well as the writers who penned the introductions to their books, will stop at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location for a wide-ranging discussion on the literary landscape of our country.

Jordan Abel’s 2021 book Nishga is among Kanata Classics’ first wave of republished books; in it, he explores his complicated relationship to the Nisga’a community and the impact of his grandparents’ time in residential schools on his own Indigenous identity. Abel will be joined by David Chariandy, who wrote the new introduction to Nishga.

Alongside Abel will be Montreal’s Kim Thúy, whose 2009 novel Ru (originally published in French and released in English in 2012) follows a Vietnamese-born woman who immigrated to Canada with her family shortly after the Tet offensive, becoming a “boat person” and moving through a Malaysian refugee camp before settling in Quebec. Thúy will be joined by Sharon Bala, who wrote the introduction to the new version of Ru.

Rounding out the list of guests is McClelland & Stewart publisher Stephanie Sinclair, who spearheaded the Kanata Classics initiative.

— Ben Sigurdson

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Forbidden Colours

• WAG-Qaumajuq, 300 Memorial Blvd.
• Thursday, 7-10 p.m.
• Free

Weaving personal stories of displacement and resilience into bold visual narratives, Syria-born Kurdish artist Bîstyek’s exhibition Forbidden Colours opens with a feature documentary screening, followed by a conversation between the artist and director.

When I Go Outside, directed by Lebanese-Canadian filmmaker Geordie Sabbagh, follows Bîstyek as he develops his style after leaving his job to become a full-time artist.

Now based in Winnipeg, Bîstyek creates works that reflect the collective identity of the Kurdish people and their centuries-long struggle for autonomy. His paintings delve into his experiences as a refugee, and that of the diaspora who remain stateless to this day.

Seating is limited and on a first-come, first-served basis. Forbidden Colours is on view until March 26.

— AV Kitching

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Portage and Main book launch

• McNally Robinson, Grant Park
• Friday, 7 p.m.
• Free

We can’t stop thinking about Portage and Main.

For good reason: it’s not just the drawn-out, sometimes comically heated, debates over whether to open the intersection to pedestrians — settled, for now, in favour of the openers.

It’s also that so much of the city’s most interesting history is inextricably linked to the city’s oldest intersection, from the 1919 General Strike to the present.

Isn’t it about time someone wrote a book on the subject?

Winnipeg historians Sabrina Janke and Alex Judge, co-hosts of the One Great History podcast, have done just that with Portage and Main: How an Iconic Intersection Shaped Winnipeg’s History, Politics, and Urban Life.

Among other things, they explore the fateful moment when the barricades came up half a century ago in the name of urban renewal — helping to empty a famously car-centric downtown of foot traffic. The profound divide between the city’s far-flung suburbs and its downtown seemed cemented, and has, by no means, been bridged for all the emphasis today on revitalizing the downtown.

Janke and Judge suggest the fate of this intersection is still uncertain.

Join the authors, and event host Free Press writer Jen Zoratti, for the book’s launch Friday.

— Conrad Sweatman

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PUP

• Burton Cummings Theatre, 364 Smith St.
• Tuesday, 8 p.m.
• Tickets $37-$63 at Ticketmaster

Although it is a band of road dogs, PUP actually stands for Pathetic Use of Potential — a sick burn administered by one of their grandmas about playing in a band.

Well, the Toronto outfit has twice been shortlisted for the prestigious Polaris Music Prize, has made its share of critic’s best-of lists for its self-deprecating, hard-hitting brand of punk rock and, most importantly, has been tearing the roofs off venues since it formed in 2010 (then known as Topanga, named after the girl next door from Boy Meets World) with its blistering live show.

PUP will bring its World’s Coolest Guys tour to Winnipeg on Tuesday in support of its 2025 album, Who Will Look After the Dogs? Hip-hop duo Snotty Nose Rez Kids will open. Note, only balcony tickets remain.

— Jen Zoratti

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