“It does feel like everybody walked into my bedroom and looked at all my stuff.”
Morgan Traa surveys the paintings and video she created spread around the room at aceartinc. The exhibit, called My City is a Graveyard, documents Traa’s relationship with Winnipeg as a young person coming to grips with the death of her mother and feeling displaced in the city’s landscape.
“To put it on display and to be like, ‘Here’s what happened, here’s how I feel about it and here’s how I wish for you to relate to it’, it’s a very daunting task. But, I do think keeping it simple in language is what makes it accessible.”
Though the subject matter is quite personal, Traa’s simplicity resonates through images of the city that its residents can very easily recognize themselves in, from a familiar used car lot on a corner in the West End to the Centennial Concert Hall. All of these images have held significance for Traa at some point in her life, and those views have changed as she’s come to grips with living without her mother, who died when she was thirteen.
“After my mom passed, I did end up living alone downtown by the age of 17,” Traa shares, detailing precarious living conditions and strained familial relationships. “A lot of hurt and loss happened between then and now, and this is that journey of where i was and how it felt at that time.”
“The city never changed, but eventually they did pave the forest between our house and the bridge,” she explained, gesturing in the direction of the Disraeli Bridge where she says she used to walk all the time. “It did keep changing, it did keep evolving. To go back where you were is difficult and it’s a relationship with yourself that you end up navigating.”
As the city has evolved, Traa has as well. She’s gotten married, settled into her first home, and is also an active member of Manitoba’s film industry. And yet, one of the key elements that she’s aimed to capture in My City is a Graveyard is a question of how to reconcile yourself with a home that has been a hostile environment.
“Winnipeg is a place people leave, people love to leave, and they love to talk about where they’re going,” Traa explains. “How do you stay and how do you reclaim a space that wasn’t very welcoming for you?”
“I think when you write that love letter and you sit down and you take the time with it, you find a way to do that.”
That love letter to the city through the eyes of Traa’s life is something that she was nervous to share with the rest of her family, with whom she’s reconciled in recent years. “For them to get more of an honest, raw look of what happened has been a little cathartic, and also a little embarrassing,” Traa admits, while noting that the exhibit has been less about validation and more about conversation.
“I think a version of myself five years ago would have really wanted the validation from my family. Now, with a bit more confidence – and I’m not in my 20’s anymore – I have a bit more sturdiness in what I meant and how I meant it.”
My City is a Graveyard runs until February 28 at aceartinc (206 Princess Street), with an artist lecture taking place on February 7 at 7 p.m. The gallery is open from noon until 5 p.m. from Wednesday and Saturday. For more information, you can visit aceartinc.’s website.