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When one walks into the Urban Shaman Gallery in the Exchange District these days, a wide range of materials and pieces will greet you. A giant canoe hangs from the centre of the exhibit, festooned with red ribbons to honour missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Rusted sheet metal is bent into sculptures that pay tribute to breast cancer survivors, and a video installation shares how all of these works and more came to be.
For two-spirit Metis artist Candace Lipischak, these pieces in their vast array all start the same way: trash from around the yard that they purchased about a decade ago outside of Otterburne, Manitoba. “I just started cleaning up and reflecting on how these pieces could come together to create art, to bring certain subject matters to life," they say. “Using all these different items just gives me the opportunity to broach many subjects and to talk about different things using different materials.”
Those materials – refuse, as Lipischak describes them – come together in Refuse(d), the overarching theme of the exhibit. “Almost all of the pieces that you see here were either thrown away or given as a gift because they know the kind of work I do,” Lipischak explains. From the moment those materials are found or gifted, they are immediately seized by the inspiration of knowing what to do with those materials to give them voice to say something for the moment.
“Man, it’s like finding gold,” Lipischak smiles as they recount those moments of inspiration. “Sometimes it’ll take a few years. You don’t throw things away, you know? All the things here were made with things that were thrown away. They all have an importance for sure.”
For Lipischak, the act of creating things out of refuse has been therapeutic for them as they confront their personal health issues, which range from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to multiple sclerosis. “When I first started creating, it was for myself,” they say. “I didn’t think, ‘I’m going to be an artist and I’m going to start doing this because I’ll be an artist.’ It was completely for myself. I just found solace in creating and not thinking about things and you’re just thinking about the piece at hand and what can I do. It was a way of kind of forgetting, but it was also a way of healing because I could use my hands and put a lot of soul into it.”
The soul of Refuse(d) will be on display at the Urban Shaman Gallery until August 30. The gallery is open from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. from Tuesday through Saturday. More information can be found at the gallery’s website.