THUNDER BAY – Thunder Bay Art Gallery is open and excited to share its two brand new exhibits with Thunder Bay residents. The exhibits titled “PIITWEWETAM: Making is Medicine” and “DAKOBINAAWASWAAN (Baby in a Cradle board” will be available for residents to come view until mid-fall.
“We’re so excited, we’ve been waiting for this all summer, all year, so we’re thrilled, we’re ready, we’re ready for people to come in.” says Penelope Smart, Curator for the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, “the shows that we have up now, we’ve been waiting to open our doors for people to come see them, they’re very special, very timely exhibitions.”
PIITWEWETAM: Making is Medicine is a commemorative exhibition by artists of the Gustafson family to honour their late son and brother Piitwewetam (Rolling Thunder) also known as Jesse Gustafson. Leanna and Jean Marshall were approached by the Gustafson family to curate their artwork.
“The exhibition is a response by the family to their grief,” says Leanna Marshall, “so, with grief there’s always a celebration of life, but what they’ve created is a space where people can come to be together, and it almost acts like a comforter for the community. They’ve offered the community a different way of grieving.”
The Dakobinaawaswaan (Baby in a Cradle) exhibition, curated by Caitlyn Bird, features more than 100 cradle boards from different communities all over North America. The exhibit was brought together by Shirley Stevens and the Cradle Keeper Co-operative of Northwestern Ontario, this exhibition is dedicated to the late Freda McDonald, the Elder for this initiative and all of the students in residential schools who haven’t come home.
Dakobinaawaswaan (Baby in a Cradle) will be open until mid-September and PIITWEWETAM: Making is Medicine will be open until the end of November.
The Thunder Bay Art Gallery is open every day from 12 p.m. until 5 p.m. except for Thursdays where the gallery is open from 12 p.m. until 8 p.m.
Face masks are mandatory for all visitors and social distancing guidelines are to be followed.
