photo credit Michael Cho
Architecture has long been a prominent feature of comics. Architecture+Comics: Canadian Cartoonists and the City Exhibit is an engaging exhibit that looks at how contemporary Canadian cartoonists are drawing cities, streets, and buildings.
It also explores architecture as spaces we inhabit and as spaces that inhabit us. The exhibit runs until June 30, 2019 at the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation, 266 McDermot Avenue.
The exhibit is co-curated by UWinnipeg’s Dr. Candida Rifkind (English) and Mariana Muñoz Gomez, who is completing her Master of Arts in Cultural Studies at UWinnipeg.
“The city has been at the centre of comics since they launched as newspaper funnies over a century ago,” explains Rifkind. “Just as we can’t imagine Batman without Gotham or Spiderman without New York, Canadian comics characters live and breathe their urban environments, from Toronto, to Montreal, to Yellowknife, to Winnipeg.”
The exhibit showcases a variety of visual styles in graphic storytelling by 11 acclaimed contemporary Canadian alternative cartoonists from across the country. The featured artists are Seth, Michael Cho, Hartley Lin, Alison McCreesh, Bryan Lee O’Malley, Jeff Lemire, Julie Delporte, Michel Ribagliati, David Lester, and the Winnipeg-based teams of David A. Robertson and GMB Chomichuk, and Tasha Spillett and Natasha Donovan.
Muñoz Gomez was interested to see if there was a correlation between the author/artist’s lived experience, and how they depicted the environment their protagonist lives in, or between the protagonist of the story and their environment.
“The books and images Dr. Rifkind and I chose for this exhibition include a variety of mediums, styles, and narratives.”
Muñoz Gomez was recently nominated for an On the Rise Award by The Winnipeg Arts Council. WAC nominates individuals who, in their own unique way, have enriched the vibrancy of our city of Winnipeg.
The Winnipeg Architecture Foundation is a non-profit, registered charitable organization dedicated to advancing the awareness and appreciation of Winnipeg’s built environment through public education. For more information about Winnipeg’s buildings, landscapes and their architects.
