How the University of Manitoba is decolonizing its art collection

The University of Manitoba is decolonizing its art collection, replacing problematic paintings and sculptures with contemporary Indigenous art.

"The university is ultimately a colonial institution that is designed to serve white people ... and that needs to change," said C.W. Brooks-Ip, registrar and preparator of the University of Manitoba Art Collection.

"We have had artwork that is by a white settler that depicts Indigenous folks in not really an accurate way, in sort of the mythologized way, that in some ways glorifies the white settlers — or at least reinforces their white supremacy."

So Brooks-Ip created the Indigenous Student Led Indigenous Art Purchase Program, a two-year pilot project that aims to change that. The group of Indigenous students meets with artists and curators, visits studios and recommends artwork to purchase.

The move comes amid a larger debate about what to do with art that reflects a colonial and imperialist history. 

The committee has received $30,000 from the school's Office of the Vice-President (Indigenous). It's submitted 24 proposals for paintings, prints, physical pieces and an etching, by artists including Jackie Traverse, Christi Belcourt and Kent Monkman. The group hopes to acquire them over the summer, and show them as part of an exhibition at the School of Art Gallery in October before installing them throughout the campus. 

Third-year student Jory Thomas, 20, says she jumped at the opportunity to get involved as the project's committee co-ordinator.  

She remembers how overwhelmed she felt starting her architecture degree at the university. At the time, she said, there wasn't a lot of Indigenous art on campus.

"Seeing pieces like that reminds me of home. It reminds me of community and it creates that sense of familiarity that gets you comfortable with being here … and ready to learn," said Thomas, who is Red River Métis.

"The university is sending a message to students [that] you are welcome here."

One painting removed from the university president's office is a work by Lionel Stephenson, an artist living in Winnipeg between 1885 and 1892.

The painting shows Upper Fort Garry on one side of the river, with an Indigenous person sitting outside a teepee on the other shore.

"It's kind of depicting a 'We're over here and they're over there' type situation," Thomas said. "It's not showing community and togetherness. It's showing the separation between the river and the settlement."

It shows "the threat of direct colonization," Brooks-Ip said.