Churchill has been through some tough times lately. Floods resulting from two huge March blizzards have eroded nearly 20 sections of train track from Gillam to Churchill. Eighteen artists from around the world have journeyed to Churchill for the ocean conservation event known as Sea Walls Festival. A couple of the artists have come from as far away as Brazil and New Zealand. With them comes the hope and inspiration this town needs!

Sea Walls mural in Churchill. Alex De Vries – Magnifico photo.

“I just think it’s really amazing to be mindful of communities like this,” said New Zealand artist Elliot O’Donnell, who makes art under the name Askew One.

“We live in a world that is increasingly refocused around city life, and we forget sometimes about the people who live in these really remote places and just kind of how delicate the situation is.”

The artists involved in this project hope to bring awareness to the importance and urgency of protecting the world’s oceans. Part of that protection process involves global warming and its effects on the rest of our habitat.

Churchill Sea Walls murals

A grand mural takes shape in Churchill. Alex De Vries – Magnifico photo.

“It’s the ocean that connects us so our relationship with the ocean is very important, and it’s also a very precarious sort of relationship,” stated O’Donnell.

Churchill, on the edge of civilization in the north of Manitoba, has had extreme weather conditions this spring leading to the destruction of a major lifeline of the town, the Hudson Bay Line.Without this transport mode Churchill faces rising costs in food, fuel and other vital supplies to the community. With airplanes the only mode of transportation at the moment, costs will rise for shipping.

Churchill Sea Walls mural

A mural adorns Miss Piggy outside of Churchill. Alex De Vries – Magnifico photo.

The delicate relationship between community and environment is something many of the artists are portraying in their murals. And with the current conditions getting worse we need all the extra motivation and inspiration we can get. Happiness through hope can be conveyed through these unique artworks.

“That’s the underlying tension in this town. It’s the drama under all the stories. It’s really about this kind of symbiotic relationship between man and nature here,” he said.

The Sea Walls festival will run through June 26.

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