june july august 2010 611 main street winnipeg manitoba canada r3b 1e1 204-949-9490 | [email protected] | www.mawa.ca d r a C t r o p e R y t i l a u q E g n i d n u F s t Two of the many Stitc h’n Bitchers at MAWA’s IWD S’nB extravaganza! March 2010 r A UNPAC (United Nations Platform for Action Committee) is a From January 1 through Oct. 15 of 2009 (the period for s group of Manitoba women who came together at the Fourth World which statistics were available), women were well supported ’ a Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, and founded a not-for- through the Manitoba Arts Council. In fact, the MAC Major b profit organization dedicated to promoting women’s economic equality Awards to senior artists were, for the first time, granted to a o in our province. Through popular education and advocacy, they roster of exclusively women artists. t i explore and expose how economic policies can have a profound n During that time period, grants to individual artists (for impact on women. For example, UNPAC holds economic literacy a the purposes of research, production and professional workshops, teaching women to understand our governments’ development) totaled $1,030,547. Of this amount, $566,186 was M budgets (not so different than the household budgeting many of us awarded to women artists and $464,361 to male artists. When are expert at!). They also educate regarding how seemingly gender- the MAC Major Awards to senior artists are removed from neutral policies like tax cuts actually privilege high wage earners and these totals, the gender gap in dollars is less than 5%, with a negatively impact lower wage earners. Unfortunately, women still slightly lower amount of $444,658 being awarded to 145 earn substantially less than men for many reasons: wage gaps individual women and $464,361 being awarded to 128 individual between traditionally gendered occupations, career-building years men. This indicates that, with the exception of the MAC Major lost as women care for families, old fashioned discrimination, etc. Awards, although men are receiving fewer awards, they receive Recently UNPAC put together a “report card” grading the larger dollar amounts per grant than female artists. Manitoba government on their funding of women. Different sectors such as childcare and housing were graded, yielding an overall mark Although funding amounts are for the most part gender of C- or “considerable action taken but needs improvement”! equal (and in this past year unusually generous in its support Interestingly, the province’s “best subject” in respect to women’s of women through the MAC Majors), gender bias does exist equality was the arts. Manitoba got a nice, big A-, “near fulfillment with respect to artistic disciplines. In some of the Manitoba of women’s equality”. Here’s what the report card said about women Arts Council competitions, all of the filmmakers receiving and the arts in our province: funding were male; in other competitions all of the dancers receiving funding were female. There were also many more awards to male composers than female, and many more awards inside to female craftspeople than male. In other words, Manitoba funding for the arts is equitable with respect to gender, but 2 Artist Lectures 7 Stitc h’n Bitch & some artistic disciplines are still primarily male or female. 3 First Fridays WAM! Wall 8 All of which is to say what we all already know: we have made 4 Field Trips Over The Top Thanks! great gains, but there is always more to be done! 10 What’s New at MAWA 5 Manitoba Artists on Thankfully we live in a province that supports the arts through 12 World Stage What You Missed an arm’s length agency. Hurray for the Manitoba Arts Council! And 6 Workshops & 13 Members’ News hurray for UNPAC, keeping a vigilant eye on gender equality in our Studio Visits 16 Heads Up Calendar province. 1 – Shawna Dempsey and Dana Kletke, Co-Executive Directors s e Kristin Nelson: Art after Art School r u Saturday June 26, 2010, 2 pm at MAWA t c e L t s i t r A ! e e r F Photo: Lloyd Beaulieu Kristin will discuss the role of mentorship on her practice post art school, and will highlight several recent solo projects and collabora tions on themes of community, gender, politics and place. She will also discuss how being an inter-media artist affects her practice, and how marketing, multiples and craft are used specifically in order to engage a broader audience. Born in Ajax, Ontario, Kristin Nelson received her BFA in Visual Arts from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 2003. She challenges stereotypes of community through her artistic practice, valourizing those often made invisible. Her recent work includes an ongoing photographic drag king trading card project, a life size knitted hay bale and etchings of Winnipeg parking lots. In Kristin Nelson, Winnipeg Commemorative Parking Lot Buttons , multiples, 2008 2008, Kristin completed a residency at the Banff Centre, Reverse Pedagogy , with artist Paul Butler. She currently works at the Manitoba Centre A, Gallery Gachet and The Lowercase Gallery (Vancouver, Printmakers’ Association in Winnipeg and serves on the board of B.C.), the Lyndon Center (Austin, Texas), Liquid Lounge (Columbus, directors for the Manitoba Crafts Council. She has exhibited work at OH), and the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Erika DeFreitas: …a most difficult one… Thursday July 15, 2010, 7 pm at MAWA Photo: David Bradley Erika DeFreitas, The Impossible Speech Act (Images #1 and #2) , photograph, 2007 Erika will introduce her recent textile -based artworks that explore Erika DeFreitas is a Toronto-based emerging artist whose issues of identity and loss, in addition to re-visiting themes in her practice is primarily conceptual. Through performance, public past art works. She will discuss the key elements of her artistic interventions, relational exchanges and photographic documentation, practice, which include research, collaboration, humour and seeking she explores the influence of language, loss and culture on the inspiration from influential visual artists. formation of identity. A graduate from the Masters in Visual Studies program at the University of Toronto, DeFreitas has exhibited 2 projects in artist-run centers in Canada and the United States. s y Candice Hopkins: Protest Architecture a d Friday June 4, 2010, noon-1 pm at MAWA i r F t s r i F ! e e r F Photo: Daina Warren With examples ranging from the history of squats in Canada, Métis Road Allowance Houses, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, Australia, and the Fake Estates of Gordon Matta-Clark, this presentation will create tenuous links between architecture and protest. Candice Hopkins is the Sobey Curatorial Resident, Indigenous Art, at the National Gallery of Canada, and is the former director and curator of exhibitions at The Western Front, Vancouver. Her recent curatorial projects include exhibitions on architecture and disaster, feminism and video, and the revolutionary potential of slowness in relation to new technologies. Aboriginal Tent Embassy, Canberra, Australia, 2005. Photo: Bentley Smith Diana Thorneycroft and Pauline Greenhill Copyright for artists: a discussion Friday July 2, 2010, noon-1 pm at MAWA shared and constantly made new by remixing? Or respect for artistic production through notions like authenticity and authorship? How do we balance artists’ rights with those of corporations, who relentlessly strive to control how their intellectual property–images and texts–gets used? Finally, what are the legal ramifications of appropriation/borrowing/stealing? Pauline Greenhill will talk about the law as she knows it, and Diana Thorneycroft will reflect on her experience of breaking it. Law school dropout Pauline Greenhill is Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Winnipeg. She has published feminist perspectives on intellectual property issues and art in the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law and Herizons. Photo: Paul Martens Photo: Brian Caines Diana Thorneycroft has exhibited across Canada, the United States and Europe, as well as in Moscow, Tokyo and Sydney. Her latest series of photographic works called Group of Seven Awkward Copyright and intellectual property have become increasingly Moments will be featured at the Winnipeg Art Gallery from June 12 complex as cultural production has changed to include mash ups, - August 22, 2010. Reproductions of paintings by Tom Thomson, cut ups, and sampled music. Do artists own their ideas? Or has Emily Carr and the Group of Seven are used as backdrops to dioramas appropriation, collage art and culture jamming blown that notion that are constructed, then photographed. By combining well-known apart? How do we balance our cultural priorities for free expression Canadian landscape paintings with scenes of accidents, disasters and while maintaining an artist’s right to make a living? What is our instances of poor judgment, the series satirizes the mythology and cultural ideal? Is it a vast, shared database of ideas and images, freely icons of Canadian culture. 3 s p Bannock Point Petroforms of Eastern Manitoba and Sweat Lodge i r T with Ron Bell, Whiteshell Natural History (Nutimik) Museum d l Sunday June 6, 2010. Cars leave MAWA at 9:30 am. Return by 6 pm. e i F Join MAWA on a journey to this sacred site. The Bannock Point Petroforms are boulders, positioned on bare rock in the shape of animals and humans, and are estimated to be 1,400 to 3,000 years old. These sculptural rock drawings of turtles, snakes and people have a ritual function: to heal and to teach. Adherents of Midewewin or Grand Medicine Society call this place Manito Ahbee, The Place Where The Creator Sits.