I am grateful for the time that KC Adams spent with us in her exhibition, Gidamaji’igoomin maamikawiseyang gidoodaanaaminaan, at C2 Centre for Craft, with some of our classmates from the course Public Art: Nuit Blanche and Other Ruptures.

In the Nuit Blanche podcast, Belonging to Place, Episode 8, “Exchanges for Collaborations,” INUA curator, Krista Ulujak Zawadski shared that when she would visit the old Inuit Vault in the basement of the Winnipeg Art Gallery she would speak Inuktitut to all of the pieces, and greet them by saying, “Hello, I can see you,” to the artworks (Nagam, 2021).

On May 18th, 2022, the Public Art: Nuit Blanche and Other Ruptures Course was fortunate to receive a tour and discussion by our fellow classmate, celebrated artist, KC Adams, of her public artworks located at the Forks.

After spending a day with peers and guests looking at art in Winnipeg for Dr Julie Nagam's course, Public Art: Nuit Blanche and other Ruptures, and an evening drinking, eating, and unpacking class concepts together, a few of our group went to see classmate KC Adams’ exhibition at C2 Centre for Craft.

I was introduced to the art form using whitefish ‘fish scales’ through a symposium held virtually through the Winnipeg Art Gallery in the spring of 2022.

Ininíwak playwright Tomson Highway’s The Rez Sisters follows seven Indigenous women, all related by blood or marriage, as they save, barter, and make their way to Toronto to participate in “The Biggest Bingo in the World.”

When I was in Toronto, I also saw Jorian Charlton’s exhibition titled Jorian Charlton: Out of Many at the AGO.

Even though I settled in Winnipeg at the young age of 5—and only a handful of months before my sister was born—I vividly remember the ways our mother shaped this place into our home.

This past weekend, I went on a very short to trip to Toronto to visited some family and explore the city a bit. I was kind of nervous about going on a trip while still having to do work for this course, but given that many of the readings talk about Nuit Blanche in Toronto, I’m so glad that I did.

I will be honest, before this class I did not realize or appreciate how complex and important public art is; I took public art for granted and never acknowledged its relationship to place.

One day after a few drinks following class, I asked KC and a few others if they wanted to see KC’s exhibition, Our spirit awakens when we remember our past at C2 Centre for Craft.

When I first moved to Manitoba, my partner's family, from a small town outside Winnipeg, told me of the Wavers of Brokenhead. This was one of the first site-specific stories shared with me about this place.