Centre for Cultural and Artistic Practices, Winnipeg
The Canadian art landscape is ever-changing. Places + Spaces keeps you informed of established and up-and-coming exhibition venues across the country including museums, galleries, artist-run centres, and more. This month, we hear from Luther Konadu, director and curator of the Centre for Cultural and Artistic Practices in Winnipeg.
What is the history and mandate of your gallery?
Heesoo Kwon, 레이무숨이 우리를 안고 있어 | Leymusoom Is Holding Us, 2022, solo exhibition
Within our very modest means, the drive for us is to always support artists and other cultural producers who use their practice to think/feel critically and with deep sensitivity through our ever-complex and fraught contemporary life.
What’s a highlight of the neighbourhood where you are located?
Book launch/public reading & discussion for Exovede in the Darkroom: The Films of Rhayne Vermette, 2023
Other arts organizations near us include Video Pool, the Winnipeg Film Group, PLATFORM Centre, and the Cinematheque, among others. Our next-door neighbours are DACAPO, a recording studio for voice-over narrators, audiobook performers, and other creative audio production professionals. And right across from us is a paint store where we get our paint supplies for the gallery.
What’s your favourite part of running a gallery?
Cikwes and Cheyenne Rain LaGrande, Nehiyaw Nikamowina ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐤ, 2024, Cree song and performance
Working hand-in-hand with various creative people to realize their vision in physical space and sharing that with the local community.
How do you find out about new artists?
Judah Iyunade, How to Interpret the Masquerade, 2024, film still
Online research, art publications, studio visits, word-of-mouth, degree shows, and visiting exhibitions in other cities
Where do you see yourself in five years?
One House Many Nations, Kakanacisitacahk: Drumming Our Houses Home, 2024, exhibition
Securing substantial and sustainable funding to employ local cultural workers to work with the gallery and execute more ambitious, edifying, and adventurous programming. If anyone is reading this and can support us, please connect.
What excites you about your upcoming projects?
Hai-Wen Lin, heat from fire, fire from heat, 2025, sound installation
Our space will continue to be activated and shape-shifted in ambitious and memorable ways. Our current exhibition, fufufufufu by Chicago-based artist Hai-Wen Lin, includes a sound installation in our basement. The piece has uniquely transformed that space into a darkened cave-like chamber for a colony of bats in the form of the artist’s sixty-plus sculptural speakers. The gallery’s next exhibition is a solo show by Winnipeg-based artist Michael Mogatas. It will consist of a scenographic installation drawing on the artist’s background as a production designer on film sets. It opens on December 6.