COLLABORATIONS ARE A CULMINATION OF MORE THAN ONE PERSPECTIVE TO CREATE SOMETHING NEW AND UNIQUE. THE WINNIPEG FOUNDATION IS HONOURED TO HAVE WORKED WITH COMMUNITY MEMBERS AND ORGANIZATIONS DURING OUR PAST 100 YEARS. WHILE OUR BIRTHDAY PLANS HAD TO BE ADJUSTED BECAUSE OF THE PANDEMIC, WE ARE SO HAPPY TO HAVE MARKED OUR CENTENNIAL WITH A FEW SPECIAL COLLABORATIONS.
CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF SUPPORTING OUR COMMUNITY BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS SAFELY CELEBRATE COMMUNITY
Alloways’ Gift and Rosalie Favell’s Family Legacy at the WAG On the first day of The Foundation’s second century, April 27, 2021, two exhibitions opened at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG), showing how Winnipeg developed into the city it is today from two different perspectives. In the year prior to our centennial, former Winnipeg Foundation CEO Rick Frost approached WAG director and CEO Stephen Borys about organizing an exhibition to mark the anniversary and honour The Foundation’s founders, William and Elizabeth Alloway. Borys took it further by proposing a second exhibition with an Indigenous response to the Alloways’ legacy, an idea that The Foundation fully embraced. The Alloways’ Gift exhibit illustrated the astonishing amount of development the Alloways would have witnessed while living in Winnipeg at the turn of the century: from the advancement of railway lines and the building of roads and streetcar tracks, to the rapid expansion of the residential and commercial sectors, and the arrival of thousands of newcomers to the region. The story of Winnipeg’s history and the Alloways’ impact was told through the art of local artists and unique artifacts drawn from the collections of the WAG, The Winnipeg Foundation archives, the Oseredok’s Ivan Bobersky Collection, the Manitoba Archives, the Manitoba Museum, and the City of Winnipeg Archives. The second exhibition, Rosalie Favell’s Family Legacy, saw contemporary Métis artist Rosalie Favell piece together the intersecting histories of the City of Winnipeg and the Indigenous peoples of the Red River settlement. Favell, who was born in Winnipeg and now based in Ottawa, used a variety of sources to construct a complex self-portrait through the lens of her family lineage in the Red River Valley, which dates back to before the 1700s. Included in the exhibition were commissioned works that experiment with lenticular photography – enabling visitors to view two images at once, demonstrating two realities. “This pair of exhibitions is an example of reconciliation in action, speaking loudly to the respective visions of WAG and The Winnipeg Foundation, and the incredible legacy of Rick Frost. I hope the multifaceted perspectives give Winnipeggers a moment to appreciate the amazing community we have here – that’s so much more because of the dedication of The Foundation and its supporters,” says Borys. The Alloways’ Gift and Rosalie Favell’s Family Legacy exhibitions ran at the WAG from April 27 to Sept. 12, 2021.
The Alloways’ Gift exhibition. Photo courtesy of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Rosalie Favell’s Family Legacy exhibition. Photo courtesy of the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
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