The new season is underway at Altona's Gallery in the Park with Winnipeg’s Miriam Rudolph the featured artist inside the Schwartz House with two distinct, but thematically connected exhibits. One is titled "Layered Histories: Perspectives on Colonization from the Chaco". Having been born and raised in Paraguay, moving to Manitoba in 2003, the journey of creating it was deeply personal for her, and one that very quickly challenged the narrative she had been taught growing up.
"Layered Histories portrays the colonization process of the Paraguayan Chaco, where the Mennonites, who are my ancestors, settled in 1927 displacing the Enlhet Norte, the local indigenous peoples," she explained. "I wasn't really aware of the extent of the displacement until I was an adult. To me, it has become really important to look at the settler narrative we are taught in schools, and to also look at the Colonial experience from other angles, and how the people that have been displaced and marginalized, who might have lost their voice along the way, how they experienced this whole process."
The collection of prints and texts emerged from an invitation for an artist residency from the Santo Domingo Centre for Excellence in Latin American Research at the British Museum. Rudolph was invited to engage with and create an artistic response to the Paraguay collection housed in storage at the British Museum in London. The exhibit features a series of 12 prints and text excerpts from three perspectives including Anglican missionaries, Mennonite historians or missionaries and Indigenous elders.
Shape of a square is prominently displayed throughout
"I really started to use the square format in these prints as a conceptual element that references the boxes that contain all the artifacts collected at the British Museum," she started. "Also the gridding of the square format repeated throughout the prints references land surveying, the measuring, the organizing, the mapping, the privatizing of land, but also a certain kind of European order and a way of thinking and an imposition of a certain kind of will."
In addition to being the descendant of Mennonite and European Paraguayan settlers, Rudolph's Manitoba Mennonite roots go back to her maternal great-great-great grandparents settling in the province in 1874, and her maternal grandfather was from Osterwick.
"I think a deep sadness about the lack of openness of what actually happened," she said when asked how she felt as she peeled back the narrative layers she was taught in Paraguay growing up. "One of the very pervasive narratives, for example, that I grew up with is when the Mennonites came to Paraguay, Indigenous people were so incredibly poor they were starving. Basically, we saved them from certain death. They came to us, and they wanted to help us get settled. Once I read the accounts by Indigenous elders, it became very clear that was not the case. They lost their access to their hunting grounds. They were curious about the newcomers, so they welcomed them, but at the same time the Mennonites started building their roads through the sweet potato fields the Indigenous people had. They said, 'No, not here. Don't build through our fields.' They didn't want it, which is what I portray in the print 'Roads' on display here. The Mennonites didn't listen, basically, so they destroyed the food sources of the Indigenous people and the hunger came after the settlement, not before."
Storied Land: (Re)Mapping Winnipeg
Rudolph's other exhibit is titled "Storied Land: (Re)Mapping Winnipeg", which came out of an invitation from the Winnipeg Art Gallery to do something similar to "Layered Histories", but about the settlement history of Manitoba and Winnipeg, but also including a connection to her Mennonite roots.
"This project was supposed to dig into the archives of the Winnipeg Free Press, trying to find traces of my people's history for the exhibition, 'Headlines: The Art of the News Cycle', which celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Winnipeg Free Press in 2022. I dug through the Free Press archives, both digitally and physically, and I chose a cross section of seven themes where either Mennonite history intersects in some way, shape or form with the general settlement history of the province, with a focus on either Metis or Indigenous displacement, or also looking forward to reconciliation efforts."
The hope is to question our thinking
Like her, Rudolph hopes both exhibits will challenge gallery goers thinking of history.
"I'm hoping that people will question their own understanding of their history, their prejudices, their perceptions, the narratives that they grew up with and ultimately decolonize our thinking."
Miriam Rudolph will be hosting an Artist Talk June 19th at Gallery in the Park starting at 7pm to discuss "Layered Histories: Perspectives on Colonization from the Chaco". She will have a second one July 24th also at 7pm to discuss "Storied Land: (Re)Mapping Winnipeg", and will be joined by Aileen Friesen the curator of "Faith, Loss, Renewal: The Russlaender Mennonites" a photo exhibit now on display on the second floor of the Schwartz house as part of the Gallery's first season.
You can listen to our entire conversation with Miriam Rudolph, below.