Breaths, Monuments, Offerings – Tour and Workshop

Curator Halley Ritter and artist Lauren Prousky will lead a workshop in three parts moving through the three core principles of the exhibition; breaths, monuments, and offerings. Incorporating a walk through the exhibition, a poetry exercise, and a drawing activity, this workshop will focus on different types of memory and ways of remembering in meaningful and meditative ways. Lauren Prousky is an artist, curator, and writer based in Kitchener-Waterloo. She received an MFA from the University of Waterloo and a BFA from Concordia University. She has exhibited her work around Canada and occasionally elsewhere, and has done residencies in Iceland, British Columbia, and Brooklyn, NY. She is currently participating in the COVE/COVOX art director incubator at Inter Arts Matrix.

Natalie Hunter. Breath of a House 2, 2019, archival pigment print on silk draped over hand shaped copper. Image courtesy of the artist.

About Breaths, Monuments, Offerings:

Natalie Hunter, Lauren Prousky, Shellie ZhangCurated by Halley RitterMarch 11 to May 6, 2022

Memories weave the fabric of identity but unravel incredibly easily. While the past, having already happened, feels concrete, we know memory is malleable. The more we revisit our personal histories, the more vulnerable they become to change, slipping away without our knowing. Holding memories is difficult. They are elusive, immaterial, and intangible by nature. Sometimes, objects can become signifiers of the stories, relationships, and traditions that shape us as proxies of people, places, and moments, or by pulling past practices into the present, but not all types of memory lend themselves easily to materialization. Sensibilities around memory and materiality are varied, complex, and personal.Breaths, Monuments, Offerings is saturated in nostalgia and self-reflection. Artists Natalie Hunter, Lauren Prousky, and Shellie Zhang’s works are each maximalist mini-monuments to different facets of memory, visualized through different media and cultural lenses. In conversation with one another, their works ask us to pause, to think, to feel, and, of course, to remember.

Exhibition and adjunct programming presented with the support of the Government of Canada through the Young Canada Works program, Building Careers in Heritage.

The University of Manitoba School of Art Gallery is physically located on Treaty 1 territory, the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

The University of Manitoba School of Art Gallery’s Adjunct programming’s objective is to create an accessible, anti-oppressive safer space to learn, explore, take risks, and connect through art. Within this framework we ask participants to engage respectfully and mindfully with each other and the facilitators. If there is anything we can do to make your visit—onsite, offsite, or online—more accessible/safe, we welcome your feedback. Please contact Jean Borbridge the Education Coordinator at the School of Art Gallery at [email protected] if you have questions, concerns, or access needs.

School of Art Gallery

255 ARTlab, 180 Dafoe Road, Winnipeg, MB, R3T2N2

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