Where Do We Put the Berries Pop-Up Exhibit
September 19 to October 12
MCML is excited to partner with the Manitoba Indigenous Cultural Education Centre for Culture Days / Nuit Blanche. We will be hosting a pop-up exhibit on basketry.
The Manitoba Indigenous Cultural Education Centre presents an extension of our 2023 original exhibit, Where Do We Put the Berries? Basketry of Indigenous North America. This exhibit aims to continue carving out new spaces to display the variation that comes with Indigenous baskets and their respective artists. We hope this pop-up exhibit helps continue conversations around the visibility of Indigenous basketry within exhibition spaces and the ever-challenging description as functional art.
Visible Mending Drop-in Workshop
September 27, 3pm – 7pm
Do you have a favorite article of clothing with a hole in it, but can’t bear to let it go? Visible Mending is a form of repairing textiles that is deliberately left visible. The aim of this method of mending is to both fix the item, and to create something beautiful and interesting where the repair has happened, rather than trying to make the repair invisible. Visible mending can be done in many different ways, we will be showing participants how to use stitching and embroidery to mend clothing.
Bring an article of clothing, or we will have some fabric to learn with. All supplies are provided.
No pre-registration needed. All ages are welcome, but this activity is best suited for ages 12 and up. Please ensure an adult is present with children.
It’s Familiar Artist Panel
Friday, October 3 | 7pm – 8:30pm
Listen to the curator and artists from ‘It’s Familiar’ discuss the concepts and ideas that brought this exhibition to life in this panel discussion, and learn more about the artworks from the artists themselves.
It’s Familiar brings together five first-generation Canadian artists: Maryam Bagheri, Desa Kalem, Netsanet Shawl, Lourdes Still, and Giancarlo Vitor, who co-created this exhibition through a deeply collaborative, participatory process. Led by curator Alireza Bayat, the project unfolded over six weeks of dialogue, storytelling, and creative exchange. The group explored themes of identity, migration, memory, and belonging, seeking common ground in the unfamiliar terrain of diasporic experience.
The exhibition’s title reflects these shared discoveries. Moments of recognition, of seeing one’s own story mirrored in another’s, became central to the process. Drawing from Participatory Design and methodologies like collaborative playwriting and inventive theatre, each artist’s work is shaped not only by their own experience, but by conversations and connections with one another. The resulting artworks form an interconnected network, distinct yet inseparable, personal yet communal.
It’s Familiar invites viewers to experience not only the finished artworks but the process behind them, a curatorial model that foregrounds inclusion, reciprocity, and the creative potential of shared authorship.
This exhibition was made possible through the generous support of The Winnipeg Foundation in celebration of Winnipeg’s 150th anniversary.
