Wide variety of offerings at AGSM

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This article was published 25/06/2020 (2109 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While movie theatres and large outdoor concerts are still off the menu due to COVID-19, Westman residents can still drop by downtown Brandon if they want to consume some public art.

Even before the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba officially reopened its doors on May 25, curator Alyssa Fearon said her staff were hard at work trying to reorganize and cultivate some exciting programming for the summer.

“There’s been quite a bit of pivoting,” she said on June 15. “That’s had to happen because of the sudden shutdown (in March), but also the sudden news to reopen. Everything’s been us trying to respond to public health guidelines.”

Despite all these changes, AGSM is currently hosting two big exhibits on their premises that should simultaneously provide an escape from and a stark look at the chaotic state of the world.

The first of these displays is titled “Prairie Versus,” which showcases a variety of summer-themed contemporary works from the Manitoba Arts Council.

“People can come, check it out and get a sense of summertime in Manitoba, even though this is such an unusual summertime for the world,” Fearon said.

The second big exhibit has a bit more local flavour, since it is comprised of paintings, drawings and mixed-media art from École Secondaire Neelin High School students.

While “Apart, Yet Connected” does feature some traditional Prairie imagery, some of these students decided to used this platform to express their anxieties and inner turmoil.

For example, Danny Todosey submitted a warped self-portrait called “The Person I Don’t Want To Be Anymore” that’s designed to, according an artist statement, “show the viewer how hard some of us struggle on the inside sometimes.”

“So this is an exhibition exploring what it means for the students to be creating work and still trying to be creative, even though they have to be socially distant and they’re not able to return to the classrooms quite yet.” Fearon said.

For those who can’t make it to the gallery in person, AGSM staff are also providing an virtual exhibit titled “!in.site,” which launched last Thursday.

This purely digital space is the preferred canvas for Brandon-based artists Dallas Flett-Wapash and Taylor McArthur, who are using it to illustrate what it feels like to live on an Indigenous reserve in the past, present and possible future.

While Flett-Wapash is trying to establish this mood through a retro video game aesthetic, McArthur is relying on dreamy 3D animation and audio to help set the scene.

Even though AGSM staff originally wanted to set up these displays in person using augmented reality devices, digital initiatives manager Cecilia Araneda said the “high touch” nature of these exhibits would have posed a problem for the gallery’s new coronavirus safety protocols.

But thankfully, launching this exhibit online is actually working out in the artists’ favour, since their work is much more accessible in its current form.

“Both of them wanted to make sure that their grandparents could really access it and be user-friendly that way,” Araneda said. “So you don’t have to have a lot of digital experience to be able to go through the exhibit.”

In fact, Fearon said this digital approach will probably inform a lot of AGSM’s overall programming moving forward.

Even when they were closed to the public from March to May, the gallery hosted virtual tours and online conversations with Manitoba artists like KC Adams that attracted viewers from all over the province and even the country.

“We were kind of forced into this experimental situation because of COVID,” Fearon said. “But in a weird, ironic way, it’s opened up a lot of opportunities for us in terms of experimenting with these digital tools, and expanding our audience and our reach exponentially.”

But with that being said, Fearon is confident that the AGSM’s brick-and-mortar location will play a pivotal role in Brandon’s art scene over the next couple months, especially with their children and teen summer classes kicking off in late June and early July.

“The fundamental role of galleries and museums is to provide a platform for critical ideas and critical conversations to happen,” she said. “That objective stays the same, whether there’s a pandemic or not.”

Until the end of June, the AGSM will be opened to the public from noon to 5 p.m., Monday to Saturday. The gallery will be closed on Sundays.

Anyone looking to check out their “!in.site” exhibit can do so by visiting insiteart.ca.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

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