http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manito...dget-1.4067639

Again updating current status..

Good, spending that kind of money ($65m) was completely ridiculous, there is enough room in the present gallery to house the "manufactured" art form called Inuit art which basically is a form of tchotchkes!

Spend the money on one of the cancelled health care projects or put it towards education!

Announcing construction to start this summer; if it was not set to go, I cannot see them announcing it prematurely.

I thought it was $15 million from the province. Anyway, $65 million is way too much for the debt that we are in.

$65 million to display a bunch of rocks. No wonder we are in such a mess.

They do hold some artistic value. People visit the wag from all over to see our collection which is incredibly unique. Unfortunately we aren't blessed with ancient Roman ruinsand classical local artwork to fill our museums but we should embrace what cultural treasure we have. Let's have at least a little pride and optimism about our city eh? This will be a great draw when it's completed so I hope it gets under construction soon :cheers:

The medium is rock, whale bone and walrus tusk which white do-gooders (exploiters) taught the Inuit to carve as a means for income in the 1950's, it hardly warrant's a $65M gallery just because WAG had a hard on for the stuff and bought up tons of it when nobody else wanted it!

$15 million in incentives to build housing downtown will be a Hell of a lot more sensible.

65$ million is the total cost, the province would only be contributing 15$ million...

Duh, thanks for the correction.

I believe it was already mentioned but demo should be proceeding shortly..

We are doing it wrong if we're always pandering to only our indigenous roots. It's very important but represents a small portion of who is here now... we can have pride but when the only cultures we represent are indigenous (with ongoing elephant-in-the-room tension) then the populace won't be ineterested.

For something top succeed here it needs local activity not just tourist. If something has genuine local buy in from a LOT of our population, then this can have traction for tourists.

The Government keeps pushing things that irk cynics. Celebrate things that everyone wants to celebrate, including inuit art and other things.

I consider myself decently open minded and when I hear about this art centre I can't help but mutter "not this shit again..."

shit isn't a reference to the culture, it's our over-investment/pandering to one aspect of our culture which always remains a hot topic.


Here's the other complaint I have. Going back to the same theme over and over again is NOT CREATIVE!!! I want more new ideas!

Sure it would be great to have other collections here but we start with baby steps and work our wat forward. Although I do agree that it does seem we are only focusing on one aspect of art and culture when there are so many facets to this city's art scene. Perhaps we could have some modern stuff eventally or some other category of art. For now I'm happy that this will bring a further presence to the block.

Are we really pandering that much to indigenous culture? I've often wondered before why we don't do more to promote it. If you go anywhere else in the world that sort of thing is a huge part of tourism, local identity and promotion - look at BC and how much first nations art and clothing gets sold there. Meanwhile you come here and there's very little that tourists can learn about first nations - there's one little shop hidden away on the top floor at the Forks that sells some native art and stuff, they get a few mentions in the CMHR and that's it. There's no museum dedicated to first nations, they get maybe one gallery in the MB museum.

People coming here should be able to buy native art, go to a pow-wow, see smudging ceremonies, try bannock, etc. It's rich culture and tourists would eat it up if we showcased it properly and respected it ourselves. Sorry but first nations have been here thousands of years and the rest of us only about 150 - there is no long-term culture here other than native culture and we're long overdue to have a place to showcase it. Yet despite how under-represented that culture is there's always the same old, thinly-veiled racist refrain from white people "oh no not more of this native crap again, enough already." It's quite ridiculous actually.

I don't think that anyone who pays the remotest attention to current events doesn't notice the amount of media attention the whole indigenous question receives on a daily basis. Wolf has a point. It is constantly being forced to the forefront of almost every political discussion nowadays yet nothing ever seems to improve.

Just being sick of the constant bombardment is not thinly veiled racism as you suggest, just people who would like a refresh in terms of politics.

All that said, I get the feeling that if someone did in fact try to capitalize on the whole indigenous culture tourism thing, they'd get crucified by the court of public opinion, native or not. Indigenous folk trying to make a buck would be portrayed as sell outs and anyone else would be committing the capital sin of 'cultural appropriation' which apparently only can occur when a white person does something that is perceived as uniquely or sacredly indigenous.

Sorry, the cynic in me is coming out.

Back to the inuit art gallery: it's great that it's happening and it's about time we recognize this unique style which is pretty exclusive to northern Canada. The fact that we display the largest collection here is good.

As long as it doesn't try to constantly make me feel guilty about being white I think we should be all good :tup:

This was my hope for what was referred to as Neeginan, a village concept along Higgins. That never happened. It would be wonderful to have this cluster of aboriginal retail, etc.

Nuh-uh, you don't get to do that. You made a very good post and then brandished me and others with the same lame bullshit buzzword crap that SJW's use on twitter to get people they disagree with fired from jobs. Your post was otherwise strong, but it doesn't need that.

You're right, we should have cultural celebration, but it struggles to stay afloat because we have so many problems that the joys of the culture don't come across as authentic! The indigenous communities have so much to offer but when politics come into play and 70% of Winnipeg's population (white people) needs to read another quote slamming "the white man", people feel pushed away, irritated.

It simply feels forced when we deal with or read about the indigenous issues plaguing their own people and our city on a daily basis, only to devote more art centres or sculptures to them. BC's aboriginals are as a whole much more successful, making it a seemless process to celebrate that culture. We're clouded in too much struggle and cynicism so I'd rather address that first.

I DO think part of the solution is helping the aboriginal communities celebrate themselves, but as I said, it's too constant thing. Celebrating helps bring some joy, but I wish for some elbow grease and hard problem solving alongside. "The white man" can help but the source if these efforts has to come from within their own ranks.

Our approximate, rough breakdown is 70% white, 20% visible minority, 10% aboriginal. We can stop pretending like the other 90% don't politically matter either.

Canada's indigenous people are historically marginalised and this has continued into the present day. We need do all we can to fix that relationship. I wouldn't consider that as anything but a net gain for society (whether you are "white" or not). I'm not sure what that has to do with the art gallery per se. The WAG has a great collection of Inuit art (which is world renowned - like it or not) so they want to build a place to showcase it. Sounds like a good idea to me.

It's not good form to claim people are rejecting your argument and refusing to engage when you reject their language and reduce their arguments to those of a straw man SJW.

The Inuit art program started in the 50's has created some beautifull peices of art and allowed the people of the North to express them selfs in art opening channels of expression and a market for them to make.money prolly.one of the better initives that came out of Ottawa at the time. It's opened the northern perspective to the world thats an important part of the Canadian identity. The more in this world the better