June 7 - July 31 2025

Miriam Rudolph

Layered Histories: Perspectives on Colonization from the Chaco

This is an artist’s book that explores the complexities of colonization of the Paraguayan Chaco region through layered etchings and diverging narratives of experiences and history from the perspectives of the Enxet and Enlhet Indigenous people, Anglican missionaries and Mennonite settlers. This collection of prints and texts has emerged from an invitation for an artist residency from the Santo Domingo Centre for Excellence in Latin American Research at the British Museum. I was invited to engage with and create an artistic response to the Paraguay collection that is housed in storage at the British Museum in London. The collection consists of Indigenous artefacts collected by Anglican missionaries in the early 1900s. This project gave me the opportunity to research the early colonization history of the Lower Chaco from the Anglican perspective, and to learn more about the colonial history of my own roots – the settlement of Mennonites in the Central Chaco beginning in 1927, which resulted in the displacement of the Enlhet Norte.

The prints and text excerpts trace the events of early contacts between European missionary explorers, settlers and Indigenous people through the changes in landscape and ways of living to today’s attempts at Indigenous assertion of their rights and tentative perspectives for the future. We often think of colonization as a process of the past. However, the impacts of colonization continue to pervade everything in our lives today: social structures and systems, our perception of land and property, the way we think about, interact with, and treat others on whose land we now live, whose artefacts we store, and whose experiences are not taught in schools. This artist’s book invites us to question our biases, our perceptions, and our understanding of history, and challenges us to decolonize our thinking.

Storied Land: (Re)Mapping Winnipeg

This is an artist’s book exploring segments of the colonial and racial history of settlement in Manitoba and Winnipeg through the use of layered etchings that recall the diverging narratives of experiences. These histories have been sourced from local newspaper archives and from various accounts of Indigenous people, Métis people, and Mennonite settlers. This collection of prints and texts emerged as an invitation from the Winnipeg Art Gallery to create a series of prints for the exhibition Headlines: The Art of the News Cycle in celebration of the 150 th anniversary of the Winnipeg Free Press. Archives and newspapers give us access to parts of our history, evidenced in the reporting, but also in the omissions in that same reporting. I am interested in the language and tone that is used in the reporting and how it has changed over the years, particularly in the way Indigenous and Métis people, as well as settlers, are represented. On the one hand, these representations are a reflection of the perception of racial differences in their time. On the other hand, they have played (and continue to play) a critical role in shaping public opinion.

The format of the prints and layout of the text resembles the format of newspaper pages, highlighting the importance of the role newspapers play in shaping our narratives and perceptions. The inclusion of digitally printed maps, contemporary satellite imagery and grids represent the settler practices of land surveying, mapping, organizing, privatizing, and settlement, as well as the colonial imposition of a certain kind of order, of will, a way of life, and a way of thinking. The impacts of colonization continue to pervade everything in our lives today: social structures and systems, our perception of land and property, the content we are taught in schools and read in the media, the way we think about, interact with, and treat others on whose land we now live, and whose experiences are not always represented in the media or taught in schools. This artist’s book invites us to question our biases, our perceptions, and our understandings of history, and challenges us to decolonize our thinking.

Aileen Friesen & Anikó Szabó

Faith, Loss, Renewal: The Russlaender Mennonites

The photo exhibit Faith, Loss, Renewal: The Russlaender Mennonites depicts the physical and emotional journey of 21,000 Mennonites from the Soviet Union to Canada during the 1920s. Using historical photographs and texts from those who decided to leave, this exhibit follows their experience of revolution, civil war, and immigration. It explores the heaviness of faith during periods of violence, and uncertainty.

Gallery in the Park

Permanent Collection

Explore our permanent collection with works by Bev Friesen, Robert Kakaygeesick Jr., Margruite Krahn, Steve Penner, Gail Sawatzky, Norman Schmidt, Barb Wiebe, and David B. Williams.