Festival dedicated to memory of Gerry Atwell

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This article was published 17/07/2020 (2142 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An upcoming festival will be dedicated to the memory of Gerry Atwell, the program director at the St. Norbert Arts Centre, musician and a proponent of empowering artists in need.

Running Aug. 14 to 16, GerryFest will be a combination of a gallery show and an invitation-only event featuring music, art and theatre at the St. Norbert Arts Centre.

“Friday, Aug. 14 was Gerry’s birthday, so we felt it appropriate to celebrate his life on that date,” said SNAC treasurer Louise May said, one of the events co-ordinators, adding this is the inaugural event of what they hope will become an annual festival.

Atwell, well-known in the city’s music and artistic circles, died on Nov. 24, 2019 from a heart attack. Dating back to 1995, Atwell held numerous roles at SNAC, including artistic director, curator-in-residence and artist-in-resident. Throughout his almost 25-year tenure he was best known as a generous creative collaborator, an interdisciplinary intercultural curator, and a mentor to young artists.

“His greatest joy was to bring people under his wing,” May said. “A deep interest in people was his hallmark. He loved finding ways to encourage disadvantaged youth in their art, to connect with senior artists, to help them really blossom.” 

To continue that mentorship, the Atwell family, along with SNAC and the Winnipeg Foundation, have established the Gerry Atwell Memorial Mentorship Fund and are currently taking donations. In the future, this will allow artists to follow in Atwell’s footsteps, by working with talented youth from communities in need.

The festival itself will feature a number of musical acts, along with opportunities to make art, including a chance to continue Atwell’s work in expressing the Black Canadian experience and an end to racism, May said.

“There will be a table where people can make Black Lives Matter cards, which we will display along the fences that we’ll be using to keep people in their designated bubbles,” May said, adding the event will take precautions due to the pandemic. “There will be people performing music and theatre in the ruins and around the grounds, as well.”

While the Aug. 14 event is by invitation only, SNAC will continue GerryFest throughout the rest of the weekend, with the gallery showing an exhibition about Atwell’s life.

Atwell began his connection to SNAC as an artist-in-residence with a major commission for an interdisciplinary theatre piece, Soul in Ice, which tells the story of his grandmother’s experience growing up as a student at the St. Norbert Convent, highlighting the Atwell family’s deep roots in St. Norbert and displaying the range of his artistic abilities.

From that first project, he became a SNAC board member and embarked on a series of projects that can be thought of as expressing the core values of SNAC as a socially-responsible, culturally-diverse institution. He co-created many Music-in-the-Ruins performances and gallery concerts, as well as having a hand in most major SNAC projects such as the Tibetan Residency and R. Murray Schaffer’s Spirit Garden.

He developed what would become his signature method of working with inner-city youth, igniting their creative empowerment through SNAC’s DepARTures program. 

“We are hoping to livestream the Friday event, because we know how many people miss him,” May said.

For more information on GerryFest and the mentorship program fundraiser, see snac.mb.ca