PLATFORM centre is pleased to present an exhibition from Winnipeg based artist Katherine Boyer. Winnipeg Guide for New Viewers: Osborne Edition runs from 31 May – 05 July, 2019. An opening reception is scheduled for Friday 31 May at 8 PM. The event is free and open to the public.

In this Gallery 2 exhibition, Boyer uses an old tourism pamphlet as source material to explore a popular Winnipeg neighbourhood. The artist considers the area’s past and present to investigate how one experiences tourism and a sense of place.

“This project was inspired by a 1929 Winnipeg tourism pamphlet “A Guide for Visitors”. Originally written as a new resident of Winnipeg I found myself, as any new resident of any city would, seeing and experiencing my immediate neighbourhood with distinctly fresh eyes. Few would argue that as an outsider there exists a short window of opportunity to truly see a place before everything recedes to a point of familiarity. It is this guiding principle that led me to research and develop this audio tour of “Canada’s greatest neighbourhood” as voted by the Canadian Institute of Planners in 2012. By any measure Osborne village is known to be an exciting place to live, work or play. Sadly, the ensuing narrative of the unique and beautiful befalling the fate of the questionably authentic is invariably intertwined with the tight grip of tourism. Visitors and residents alike are faced with real questions about perception when economic gains trump the intuitive development of a community identity.” – Katherine Boyer

BIOGRAPHY
Katherine Boyer is a multidisciplinary artist, whose work is focused on methods bound to textile arts and the handmade, including fabric manipulation, papermaking, woodworking and beadwork. Boyer’s art and research is entrenched in Métis history, material culture and personal family narratives. Through the experience of long, slow, and considerate laborious processes, Boyer contemplates the use of her own Métis body as a conduit for building upon ancestor relations. Boyer has received a BFA from the University of Regina and an MFA at the University of Manitoba. She currently holds a position as an Assistant Professor at the U of M, School of Art.