By Dr. Ernest Cholakis

As published in the Winnipeg Free Press

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

The Winnipeg Art Gallery is Canada’s oldest civic art gallery, and over the decades, it has been constantly responding to, reflecting and engaging with the community. It’s that constant change that has allowed us to be here for over a century — and to remain meaningful, relevant and fun.

Art is rarely still or static — it’s alive and dynamic — and our studio art programs must reflect these changes as well. Change isn’t always easy or welcome, but at the WAG we know this change is for the better as we endeavour to serve the greater community — and the whole community.

As we embrace the second century of our mandate, we are reimagining and rethinking our role as a museum in the 21st century, including the aspiration to understand and embrace reconciliation, indigenous communities and their art. Part of that includes making way for an Inuit Art Centre while remaining committed to the pillars that have allowed us to grow and thrive. Art education is one of those pillars and is critical to our mission.

Our studio programs have never been busier, and we continue to see thousands of children and adults attend our core art classes annually, from painting and drawing to pottery and Saturday morning art classes. Thousands more participate in art-making activities with our school programs. Engagement with the Manitoba school system is at an all-time high, and the quality and diversity in these programs have helped make this happen. In 2014, we signed a memorandum of understanding with the province on school education, and over the last five years, student participation in our classes and our tours has doubled.

We’ve recently welcomed new studio and curatorial staff — including three indigenous specialists — who are revitalizing the WAG Studio and exhibitions with programming that is accessible to a wider audience. We’re experimenting with less traditional models and are seeing meaningful growth. Artist instructors lead all our innovative MakerLabs and Paint Parties, which are less intimidating ways to join art classes.

The WAG is home to over 27,000 works of art, spanning centuries and cultures, including the world’s largest public collection of contemporary Inuit art. We’re finally giving this indigenous art a much-needed home, bringing it out of the vaults and into public spaces. But the Inuit Art Centre is much more than a building to display art. The centre is about dialogue, exploration and enrichment. This is the template for today’s museum — one that embraces and responds to the interests, needs and character of communities we serve.

The new building will replace the current WAG Studio at Memorial Boulevard and St. Mary Avenue; however, education programs will only expand with larger and more versatile spaces. The Inuit Art Centre will allow visitors to create and learn about art in an entirely new way, as we quadruple the number of spaces for students through the use of interactive galleries, art studios, maker-spaces and global classrooms.

We expect to begin construction in 2017, and it’s inevitable that studio classes will change during this transition period, but we’re working to find creative solutions to keep students engaged. Some studio classes will move back to the gallery’s lower level (where the studio programs were originally held), and other classes will take place in the galleries.

We’re also exploring options to take programs out to the community as we’ve done for decades. This outreach will echo the work we’ve begun with our program sites at The Forks and Assiniboine Park through the WAG@TheForks and WAG@ThePark partnerships. The WAG Studio is not just a room — it’s a place, an idea and a forum.

The Through the Eyes of a Child exhibition will continue in a new way during the construction of the building and will come back even bigger when the Inuit Art Centre opens.

The WAG board is a diverse group of community members who understand and support this ambitious vision. With the guidance of First Nations, Métis and Inuit members of our board over the last few years, we’ve emboldened the gallery-wide initiative of indigenization, which has included studio programs.

The Inuit Art Centre will help connect us with more people, more families, more communities — and more young artists — some of whom have never been engaged with us before. As we embrace reconciliation and indigenous communities, the WAG will evolve for the better to reflect multiple voices and perspectives. We’re here for the long run — for all Winnipeggers. And our studio programs will continue to thrive!

Ernest Cholakis is the chairman of the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s board of directors.

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