New Winnipeg art exhibit brings together nature, disability

Nature and disability are coming together in Winnipeg’s St. Boniface neighbourhood.

At La Maison des artistes visuels francophones, a new art exhibit shows how artists with intellectual disabilities experience nature through touch, sight and sound.

The exhibit is called “Experiencing Eden: Disability and the Natural World.”

“The process of coming up what people wanted to make really came from the artists themselves, talking about things that they find beautiful, and flowers and nature were our number one,” said Grace Slivinski, the community events coordinator with L’Arche Winnipeg.

L’Arche is a non-profit organization that creates homes and social opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities.

For this exhibit, they wanted to create a sensory garden.

“There’s rain sticks on the wall and then we have the birds playing in the background,” said Slivinski.

“One of our artists when we were talking about what inspired them and what they wanted to share through our exhibit was, she talked about walking through a garden and there being rain and sun in our days and in nature, and how you need both for things to grow and how rain can be fun, too.

“So if you come into this corner, we have our main tree that has beaded components that people worked on. Bracelets that people made from embroidery thread and we put that with wind chimes so that people can create sound under the bench.”

Slivinski says one person asked every day if he could make flowers.

“So that’s where we’ve got a bunch of these here,” she said. “There’s a bunch of his art out in the main room as well.”

Another member drew a representation of Disney’s Bambi.

“This piece was actually made by a woman who I lived with. And I love to see her do her art,” Slivinski explained. “This is a picture of Bambi and it’s got all the details. It’s got Flower and Thumper in it, and I love to see all her bright colours and how she also tries to emphasize all the different parts of their bodies – their ears, their face. I think it’s really beautiful.”

L’Arche’s funding and communications coordinator, Jubilee Dueck Thiessen, says the exhibit is to celebrate its members.

“So many of our members are gifted artists and don’t often have opportunities to share their art with their broader community,” said Thiessen.

“This exhibit is about the experiences of our artists with disability in nature. Where they see beauty. Where they feel connected to their community, where they see our shared humanity.

“Where do we feel like ourselves. Where do we feel known. Where do we feel like we belong? And for many of our members, the answer was in nature.”

The artists behind this exhibit are our L’Arche Winnipeg members who live, work and come to social programming in our L’Arche Winnipeg community.

“In our homes, people with disabilities live full-time with people without disabilities, sharing ordinary life. Supporting each other and building mutual relationships,” Thiessen said.

“Experiencing Eden: Disability and the Natural World” is available to experience free beginning Thursday, kicking off with an artist talk at 7 p.m. It runs until Aug. 23.