Winnipeg shimmered in June heat—sunlight pooling on concrete, stories blooming louder than the traffic hum. We gathered there not just to share, but to listen, to witness what happens when distance collapses into presence. Every hallway, every bench, every patch of shade outside Qaumajuq became a studio, a stage, a scene unfolding in real time. Canada Council for the Arts lit the spark—Digital Greenhouse breathing life into ideas too big for one voice, too complex for a single frame. Qaumajuq made it lit. Digital became tactile. We touched screens and stone, code and carving, discovering new ways of holding memory and dreaming forward. In this heat, even the data felt alive, growing wild through collaboration, rooted in love, land, and long-held knowing. Laughter echoed off glass and stone, caught in air vents and elevator doors. We stitched together movement, memory, and light—pixels humming with intention, hands working with purpose. Nothing stood still. Even the quiet moments were loud with meaning. We didn’t just make art—we made atmosphere, made kin, made future.

Qaumajuq: The Power of Stories

By Jamie Bell

Winnipeg shimmered in June heat—sunlight pooling on concrete, stories blooming louder than the traffic hum. We gathered there not just to share, but to listen, to witness what happens when distance collapses into presence. Every hallway, every bench, every patch of shade outside Qaumajuq became a studio, a stage, a scene unfolding in real time.

Canada Council for the Arts lit the spark—Digital Greenhouse breathing life into ideas too big for one voice, too complex for a single frame. Qaumajuq made it lit. Digital became tactile. We touched screens and stone, code and carving, discovering new ways of holding memory and dreaming forward. In this heat, even the data felt alive, growing wild through collaboration, rooted in love, land, and long-held knowing.

Laughter echoed off glass and stone, caught in air vents and elevator doors. We stitched together movement, memory, and light—pixels humming with intention, hands working with purpose. Nothing stood still. Even the quiet moments were loud with meaning. We didn’t just make art—we made atmosphere, made kin, made future.

Workshops at the Winnipeg Art Gallery

410,790 views—and each one carries a whisper of that moment. A gathering not staged but lived, glowing in the afterlight of creation. We were at Qaumajuq, beneath the gentle weight of memory carved in stone, surrounded by art that breathes across time. The youth stood in that light—artists, storytellers, documentarians of now—bearing witness to each other and to the legacies they carry forward.

This was the a major highlight of our Canada Council for the Arts Digital Greenhouse arts incubator project: a conference that became something more, something living. Workshops dissolved into conversations, panels into shared laughter, and quiet corners became studios of spontaneous expression. We collaborated across vast distances—Tuktoyaktuk, Arviat, Northwestern Ontario—connected not just by cables and code, but by purpose. Each participant brought their own knowledge systems, digital tools, and ancestral memory, interwoven through film, spoken word, motion, and media.

Qaumajuq became our shared studio and ceremonial ground. Surrounded by its visible vault, stories unfolded through screen and sound, through pencil sketch and pixel. The building, already humming with generations of Inuit creativity, welcomed a new constellation of voices. It was not just a celebration—it was a reimagining of what digital arts can be when rooted in land, in language, in community care. We weren’t just looking at art—we were becoming part of it.

What started as a pilot grew into a pulse. The Digital Greenhouse gave breath to intergenerational exchange, letting innovation grow through the cracks of colonial timelines. We left that gathering with our bags full of audio, footage, sketches, and shared meals—but more importantly, with a deeper sense of who we are when we create together. A collective proof: that the future of art in this country is collaborative, complex, and already in motion.

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This project was supported by:

Across the 177 weeks since launching our arts incubator program, these top photos, collectively attracting more than 2,703,807 views across platforms. This gallery showcases the moments that most captured attention. From curated art spaces to Winnipeg diners and the fleeting beauty of everyday life, this collection reveals the unexpected connections forged between our captured perspectives and a vast, unseen audience drawn to these seemingly random slices of life.

Filed Under: 7015-21-0023