A letter from the Prairies—plus photos!—all by Hannah Godfrey


Skirting the eastern edge of the Canadian Prairies at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, the city of Winnipeg is home to just under 700,000 souls, many of whom have helped nurture a diverse and vibrant cultural community that is known and respected far and wide.

Is it the weather? Is there something in the water? What's at the root of the Winnipeg success story? Hannah Godfrey, an on-the-ground cultural programmer at work in the middle of the action, offers an objective and suitably irreverent take on what makes Winnipeg tick.



When the ice has finally let go of the pavement and you can cycle as God intended, with the only dangers being pleasant distractions and Freudian drivers, this is when The Antlerteers declare that the First Day Of Spring has come to Winnipeg. Should you miss an invitation to this auspicious occasion, you will nevertheless happen upon the aforementioned gang of aberrants and miscreants, for there are few streets along which they do not gallop. The most obvious evidence of The Antlerteers: their horde of bicycles with antlers attached to the handlebars. Menacing yet noble, absurd yet commanding, this roving fleet evokes wonder, disbelief and good cheer; much like the community of artists living in Winnipeg, this sprawling, traffic island in the Prairies.

I arrived here fourteen months ago to work the Best Job In The World. Although I had not heard of Winnipeg before, many of my friends in England spoke enthusiastically about the Royal Art Lodge, Guy Maddin, and even those mythical losers, the Winnipeg Jets. Winnipeg! City of artists, life-threatening cold, and biblical mosquito swarms, I strode toward you with open heart and clear head and you haven’t ceased filling both.

Allow me to illustrate. This Halloween, I found myself on the handlebars of the Golden Hawk (a.k.a., my bicycle, sans antlers) with Zorro seated behind me pedalling mightily. We arrived at an anonymous looking house and, after a dismount I need not describe, we found our way inside the velvet and concrete cavern known as The Orphanage. Once a Pregnant Prom Queen gracefully and wordlessly dispatched our drinks, Zorro and I took a walk round the bar. In a discrete room filled with a divan and sofa, a Cave Man attempted intercourse with the wall whilst Tina Turner’s Private Dancer lay by, helpless with whippet-fuelled hysterics. A Mexican Wrestler in a business suit straightened his tie as he left a washroom fitted with golden-footed tub and chandelier. At a nearby table, two drag queens gossiped about other drag queens’ expenditure on eyelashes (the more expensive, the less respect; this is Winnipeg, remember).

Amongst The Peg’s many makers and secret shakers out on this night were the president of the Fort Garry (Ladies) Pony Club and her executive, refilling each other’s glasses with nonchalant regularity (for, in this group, there is no half-empty, half-full: the cup either overflows or is dropped to the floor.). The Pony Club is comprised of artists and entrepreneurs; they do some public events but activities tend to be for members only: dinners, days at the races, and research into the lost archive of the club (which was founded 1907). The club's initiation ceremony is conducted in a secret location and is somewhat legendary, rumoured to be gothic and not a little menacing. What the initiates have to do is a complete mystery; I’m not sure I even want to know.







By now you may have surmised that the people who hang out at The Orphanage are irrepressibly, irreverently creative. It’s the kind of place where those “what—are you serious?” kinds of ideas find their winter romances. (Forget summer romances; in this province winter is when everyone hooks up for the long, cold nights.)

In The Orphanage, and all across Winnipeg, everybody knows everybody eventually. In other parts of the world the “seven-people-removed” rule connects everyone, but in Winnipeg it’s more like the “two-people-removed” rule. Because of this—and because Winnipeggers tend to walk what they talk and are more interested in using knives for cutting linoleum than for stabbing backs—a lot of stuff gets done here.

Proximity also helps. In the Exchange District, there are seventeen cultural organisations within a ten-minute walking radius. Borrow a bike and you are only ten minutes away from several more. And all of these places are self starters. This city is bursting with cultural producers who most likely wouldn’t call labels themselves as such—ever—but are nonetheless very much involved.

Ready access to the means of production (e.g., printmaker’s studios and printing presses, vidoe pre- and post-production facilities, dark rooms, woodshops) means that if you want to make something you have the capacity to do so. The standards of production are high and skill-sharing a given.

On top of all this, people work hard here, they dedicate. As many speculate, this has got to be in some part due to the weather. It takes determination to keep working when it's been minus-30 for five weeks and you’ve run out of paint or paper or tape.

Despite the generally solitary nature of art making, people readily help each other out in this city. It’s minus-25? Of course I’m coming to your reading. It's minus-37? Yep, I’ll meet you on the river with the camera to film your crazy ice performance. I’m surprised there isn’t a more Nordic penchant for hard liquor in response to the harsh climate. Maybe the generous helping of sunlight keeps the darker side of winter somewhat in check.



Working with the exhibition Over Here by Alexandre David (installed at aceartinc., where I'm the programmer) may be my most memorable experience yet with the incredibly connected, participatory, off-kilter community of Winnipeg. Affectionately nicknamed “The Curve,” this wooden installation arced from the floor halfway to the ceiling from wall-to-wall-to-wall in the main gallery—a beautiful interruption of space and dislocation of architecture.

Alexandre was fully supportive of my wish to conduct physical dialogues with the space and explore the implications i.e. transformation of space = transformation of use + transformation of perception of art, culture, and community. I super-programmed this installation for more than a month, inviting all sorts of artists and cultural producers to do their thing on the curve, and, boy oh boy was it fun and informative. Cinema, poetry readings, performance art, music, blackout soundscape listening parties, waltzing, the largest knitted hay bale in the world, skateboarding, trick bike riding, rolling, feminist collective meetings, urban planner meetings—so much happened and so much of it by people who are not necessarily part of the “art scene” per se but are nonetheless dedicated creators and enthusiastic participants in the city’s cultural life.

I’ll never forget seeing the captain of the Winnipeg Roller Derby League skate with members of the Jungle Cats women’s skateboard crew while their pals, city arts administrators and general pleasure seekers enjoyed the show, having come by straight after work. The crowd gradually swelled and the parking lot party (planned on the installation, incidentally, by the Urban Planners Network and Hello World!) kicked into gear using aceartinc.’s sound equipment. It was rampant and enthusiastic interbreeding–I’d not seen or felt anything like it for some time.

But back to The Antlerteers. They represent to me the free self-possession and peculiar community spirit of Winnipeg’s cultural producers. They also epitomise the secret squirrel-ness of the city. You need an in here. It’s not too hard to get one, but you need it nonetheless. Without it, the relentless grey of the buildings makes doors invisible and everything seem inscrutable; you’ll wonder where the art is because there isn’t a whole lot on the cold, cold streets.

Should you find yourself here, the heart of the continent, on a spring day, I humbly suggest that you borrow a bike and tie antlers to its handlebars. You’ll soon find some mischief to get into with local folk. Or, if you're not into cycling, email a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend a friend of a friend of a friend before you arrive and invite ‘em to go for a beer at The Orphanage. You’re bound to find what you’re not looking for.