Winnipeg, Manitoba – May 23, 2023 – Opening on May 26, the first day of Pride 2023, If These Walls Could Talk: 50 Years of 2SLGBTQ+ Activism in Winnipeg, explores the issues addressed by the 2SLGBTQ+ community in Winnipeg after the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1969.
If these Walls Could Talk provides visitors the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of different types of activism used to advance and protect rights of the 2SLGBTQ+ community over the past 50 years and was developed in partnership with the Rainbow Resource Centre.
“Today, Canada’s 2SLGBTQ+ people have some of the most inclusive rights in the world, but it’s easy to forget these rights are recent and fragile. Where we are now is the result of the hard work of individuals, dreaming of a better future for 2SLGBTQ+ people, uniting and speaking with one voice,” says Ashley Smith, Director of Advocacy at Rainbow Resource Centre. “If These Walls Could Talk is a timely lesson in how far the 2SLGBTQ+ community has come and how much there is to lose.”
This community exhibition on display at the Manitoba Museum features reproductions of historical posters and photographs, a video, interpretive panels, and a unique interactive rainbow light wall. The exhibition covers campaigns to include sexual orientation in Manitoba’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, combat HIV/AIDS, marriage and adoption rights, protection for gender diversity, and more.
“The Manitoba Museum is honoured to facilitate this telling of Winnipeg history,” says Roland Sawatzky, Curator of History at the Manitoba Museum. “It’s an important chapter of our collective story, a chapter that has made the city a kinder and wiser place.”
If These Walls Could Talk opens to the public on May 26 and access to this exhibition is included in General Admission to the Museum Galleries.
Please join us for a free panel event, Queer Activism: Now More than Ever, June 2, from 7 pm to 8 pm, during the Manitoba Museum’s First Fridays evening, during which the Museum offers free admission between 4 pm and 9 pm. In this panel discussion, Rainbow’s Ashley Smith will be joined by contemporary queer activists and academics to explore how the global rise of an anti-queer rhetoric threatens the rights of 2SLGBTQ+ people here in Canada, and how the fight against discrimination needs the active support of Manitobans.
Members of the media are invited to preview the exhibition in the Urban Corridor between the hours of 11 am and 1 pm on Thursday, May 25, 2023. For pre-arranged interviews, please contact Brandi Hayberg: [email protected].
To learn more about If these Walls Could Talk: 50 Years of 2SLGBTQ+ Activism in Winnipeg, here.
This exhibition was produced in partnership with the Rainbow Resource Centre, and funded in part by the Manitoba Government, Department of Sport, Culture, and Heritage.
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Media Contacts:
Brandi Hayberg
Manager of Marketing and Communications
Manitoba Museum
204-988-0614
[email protected]
Ashley Smith (He/Him)
Director of Advocacy
Rainbow Resource Centre
204-474-0212 ext. 255
[email protected]
