Agency of Art and Architecture in Public Spaces: A Panel Discussion

Agency of Art and Architecture in Public Spaces: A Panel Discussion

A conversation exploring how acts of art and architecture in public spaces provoke and activate dormant or latent social and cultural values within the everyday. How & what works, and what does not.

Moderator

Honoure Black (PhD Candidate, Faculty of Architecture University of Manitoba, MA, BA)

Honoure is a white settler woman, mother, partner, instructor, and Ph.D. Candidate in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Manitoba. She is a sessional instructor for Indigenous Studies, the School of Art, and the Faculty of Architecture, and specializes in the stories of Turtle Island through art histories, public and urban art in Winnipeg, and decolonial research methods. Honoure’s PhD focuses on insurgent and Indigenous public art in Winnipeg Treaty One and stories and histories the work seeks to (re)tell. Additionally, her work attempts to promote new ways of arts-based research to learn from and with anti-colonial perspectives, through land and place-based thought. She has recently published a book chapter: with Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair, “Re-Creating This Place: Indigenous Public Art At The Centre Of Turtle Island” in HOLDING GROUND: NUIT BLANCHE AND OTHER RUPTURES, Edited by Julie Nagam and Janine Marchessault and frequently collaborates on writing projects and co-instruction with Shawn Bailey and Lancelot Coar on projects such as: “Decolonizing the Design Process with Five Indigenous Land-Based Paradigms” in Canadian Architect,  “Art and Design for Kahnowiilyaa and “(Re)Entering Many Worlds: Teaching and Collaborating to Design the Pluriverse” Making Worlds in the Pluriverse. Edited by Ganaele Langlois, Patricio Davila, and Renata Leitão, and “Returning to the Land as Wendaaji’owin (as that which sustains life), to Re-Imagine Creative Praxis”, in Arts Creation: A Curriculum of Relationality, Resurgence and Renewal. Honoure is most inspired when working in collaboration with her colleagues. She loves to garden and is a mother of two fierce daughters who teach her new ways of knowing every day.

Panelists

Allison Yearwood (Executive Director, Plug In ICA)

Allison is an alumnus of the University of Winnipeg, with a political science and business administration degree, and brings a fresh focus to the business of arts administration. Allison returns to her hometown, Winnipeg, from the Banff Centre, where she was Program Manager at the Indigenous Arts Department. Previously, Allison served as Art and Business Manager at Yamaji Art, an Aboriginal art centre in Australia, and was the General Manager of Collective of Black Artists in Toronto. Allison was the Programming and Events Coordinator at the Northern Life Museum & Cultural Centre in Fort Smith, North West Territories, and was the first non-Indigenous staff member at Urban Shaman Gallery in Winnipeg. Allison advocates for racialized and disenfranchised groups to decolonize institutions of power from the ground up. She is exceptionally skilled on equity issues and a powerful and transformative voice for anti-racism action. Allison is a proponent of equity justice in media and digital production and has acted as program manager for digital art residencies at Banff Centre. Allison’s institutional critique articulates the creation of safe spaces for underserved communities within the institution. She currently is the Board Chair of aceartinc.,is a former member at large for Spiderwebshow Theatre, and is a member of the Equity Committee for CAMDO.  She has recently collaborated on When Veins Meet Like Rivers, Magic, Keystrokes and Glitter, and Plug In’s recent Biennale STAGES 2023

Liz Wreford (Principal and Founding Director, Public City Architecture)

Liz is the Principal Landscape Architect and a founding director of Public City. With twenty-five years of experience in the profession, she has worked in Canada, the United States and Australia to transform public spaces into joyful, celebratory environments with a distinct identity. Along with trans-disciplinary practice, she is a business owner, teacher, mentor, and mom of two t(w)eenagers. She currently sits on the Board of the Winnipeg Arts Council and is the Chair of its Public Art Committee.

Bill Pechet (Director, Pechet Studio)

Bill holds degrees in Geography, Visual Arts and Architecture and has been producing artworks, memorials, and urban infrastructure in the public realm for over 30 years. In addition to his studio work, Bill is a faculty member at the UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and a frequent lecturer on the urban environments and the critical role that public space can play in the development of healthy and vibrant cities. In 2018, Bill won the Carter Wosk Award, the highest award in the province, for his creative achievements in local, national, and international milieus.