Gaboury, often celebrated as the province’s greatest architect, was known for his masterful use of light in buildings such as the St. Boniface Cathedral and Precious Blood Church. He passed away in 2022, but his influence continues to shape Diallo’s work.

“It’s a meditation on life, on the journey of life, the cycles of life and time and perhaps memories as well,” said Diallo, whose exhibition Heliophile features glass sculptures, installations, and projections — her first time working in this medium.

The exhibition draws on themes of family, memory, and place, while paying tribute to Gaboury’s artistry and Métis heritage.

Heliophile runs until August 22, 2025, at Galerie Buhler Gallery in Winnipeg.

To read the entire article, please follow the link to CBC Manitoba.

Diallo is the 2024 recipient of the Terry G. Falconer Memorial Rh Institute Foundation Emerging Researcher Award in the Creative Activities category, recognized for her expansive and innovative approach to contemporary art. 

UM Today caught up with Diallo to learn more about her and the research she is undertaking. 

Tell us a bit about yourself and your research. 

My work explores how visual cultures evolve, with themes of memory, nostalgia and otherness shaped by my Franco-Manitoban and Senegalese heritage. I work across media—collage, sculpture, video, installation—and often create projects that examine how identity, history and our connection to the environment intersect. I think of my work as unfolding in chapters, where each project builds on research and experimentation with materials and ideas. 

Why is this research important? 

Research is how my practice evolves. It helps me explore new ideas, make connections and create work that speaks to broader cultural or societal issues. The work itself becomes the outcome of the questions I’m asking. For me, research is also about dialogue—tapping into different ways of knowing, sharing perspectives and contributing to collective conversations in the arts and beyond. 

What does the Rh Award mean to you? 

It’s an honour to be recognized, especially as someone relatively new to the School of Art. This award affirms that the work I’m doing matters—to peers, to the community, to the university. It’s encouraging, not just for what I’ve already done but for what’s ahead. And I appreciate that this recognition includes interdisciplinary artists—it reflects the value of integrating creative work into the larger research landscape. 

What do you hope to achieve in the future? 

I want my work to keep resonating with people—locally and internationally. I’m also focused on sharing knowledge with students and contributing to a strong, supportive arts community. As I continue to take on ambitious projects, I hope to do so at a sustainable pace that allows for deeper exploration and meaningful connection. 

What about you might people find surprising? 

I actually started my undergrad torn between graphic design and visual arts—so I did both. That indecision ended up being a strength. The blend of digital design and analog art has really shaped how I create today.  

Any advice for early-career researchers and students? 

Stay true to what interests you, even if others don’t find it exciting right away. If you’re genuinely curious about something, people will respond to that. And don’t be afraid to ask for support—collaboration and mentorship can make a huge difference. 

“It is wonderful to see Dr. Hu recognized for his decades of research in fundamental science, working behind the scenes to improve the smart devices we depend on every day,” says Dr. Mario Pinto, Vice-President (research & International). “These awards are an important opportunity for UM to celebrate researchers across who are making frontier discoveries that lead later to transformative impacts in society. I congratulate all the recipients on this well-deserved honour.”

Awards are given in two categories: The Dr. John M. Bowman Memorial Winnipeg Rh Institute Foundation Award, awarded to one established faculty member annually and the Terry G. Falconer Memorial Rh Institute Foundation Emerging Researcher Awards, awarded to seven early career faculty members.

Can-Ming Hu, distinguished professor of Physics and Astronomy at the UM Faculty of Science, is the recipient of the Dr. John M. Bowman Memorial Winnipeg Rh Institute Foundation Award in recognition of his advancements in quantum material interactions, helping shape the next generation of communication technology.

Terry G. Falconer Memorial Rh Institute Foundation Emerging Researcher Award recipients are:

Applied Sciences

Dr. Chyngyz Erkinbaev (biosystems engineering) is a scientist whose research is advancing intelligent sensing techniques in food production. Erkinbaev is internationally recognized for his leadership integrating engineering, digital and biological research in the real-time monitoring of food quality and safety using smart sensing technologies.

Dr. Xihui (Larry) Liang (mechanical engineering) is a leading innovator in the predictive maintenance of machinery such as gearboxes, pumps and turbine engines. Liang’s independent research program at the Price Faculty of Engineering is driving advancements in reliability and efficiency for critical energy infrastructure.

Creative Activities

Ms. Anna Binta Diallo (School of Art) is an interdisciplinary visual artist who blends collaged images, vinyl adhesives and sculptural forms to create dynamic gallery and public space installations. Diallo’s research is focused on re-framing and re-mixing stories as a means of de-centering dominant Eurocentric narratives in contemporary art.

Health Sciences

Dr. Heather Armstrong (internal medicine) conducts groundbreaking research on how diet, environment, and the gut microbiome interact to influence gastrointestinal diseases and immune health. Armstrong works with national and local patient cohorts to develop precision nutrition tools to support those with inflammatory bowel disease and other gut-related conditions. 

Dr. Christy Pylypjuk (obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences) holds multifaceted clinical roles as Assistant Director of the Obstetrical Outreach Program, Assistant Director of the Maternal Fetal Medicine Fellowship Program and Health Sciences Centre Site Lead for the Canadian Preterm Birth Network. Her research uses fetal ultrasound to improve outcomes for pregnant patients and their babies.

Natural Sciences

Dr. Savino Longo (physics and astronomy) conducts research in experimental subatomic physics to explore the origins of the universe. Longo is a leader of international collaborations to better understand the building blocks of matter using high-energy matter-antimatter collisions as well as the development of new technologies for subatomic particle detectors.

Social Sciences

Dr. Patricia Thille (physical therapy) is a research-intensive associate professor at the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences focused on issues like body size, chronic pain and self-management in community-based care. With expertise in both physiotherapy and sociology, Thille seeks to expose stigma and promote equity in health care.

To learn more about research excellence at UM, visit our Awards and Recognition webpage.

Facing Photographs – Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff

Facing Photographs is inspired by Rosalie Favell’s Facing the Camera series (2008–2018), which captured over 500 portraits of artists and arts workers across Canada, Australia, and the United States. Featuring works from Banff Centre’s Permanent Collection, the exhibition reflects on agency, self-representation, and the politics of portraiture. Artists include Lori Blondeau, Cassils, Anna Binta Diallo, John Edmonds, Evergon, Rosalie Favell, Logan MacDonald, Nadia Myre, Shelley Niro, Barbara Spohr, and Jin-me Yoon.

(Fellow School of Art Associate Professor Lori Blondeau is also featured in this exhibition.)

• February 14 – May 4, 2025

Black Prairies – Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina

Black Prairies explores over a century of Black cultural production in the Prairies, featuring historical photographs and contemporary works. Highlights include archival glass plate negatives by Black Manitoban photographer William “Billy” Beal, images from the Frank B. Jamerson fonds, and newly commissioned pieces by artists including Christina Battle, Anna Binta Diallo, Cheryl Foggo, and Chukwudubem Ukaigwe. The exhibition examines Black migration, homesteading, and identity.

• February 1 – May 14, 2025
• Curated by Alyssa Fearon
• Watch the CBC segment on Black Prairies: Video Link

Afrotopos – Nigra Iuventa, Québec

Afrotopos brings together artists including Damien Ajavon, Delali Cofie, Anna Binta Diallo, Marie-Danielle Duval, and others to explore African futurism and speculative narratives. Rooted in Felwine Sarr’s concept of Afrotopia, the exhibition reimagines Africa’s present and future through a mix of personal histories and utopian visions.

• January 25 – March 30, 2025
• Curated by Diane Gistal
• Read more about Afrotopos in Le Devoir: Article Link

These exhibitions provide powerful reflections on history, cultural identity, and representation, coinciding with Black History Month and bringing timely conversations to national and international audiences.

Congratulations to all the recipients of the 2023 Merit Awards.

Category: Social Sciences, Humanities and Fine Arts

Combination:

• Andrea Charron, Department of Political Studies, Faculty of Arts
• Anna Binta Diallo, School of Art
• Mingzhi Liu, Department of Accounting and Finance, I.H. Asper School of Business
• Liv Valmestad, Department of Architecture/Fine Arts Library, UM Libraries

Research, Scholarly Work and Creative Activities:

• Shiu-Yik Au, Department of Accounting and Finance, I.H. Asper School of Business
• Enrique Fernandez, Department of French, Spanish and Italian, Faculty of Arts
• Jorge Nállim, Department of History, Faculty of Arts
• William Oxford, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts

Service:

• Michelle Pearson, Student Counselling Centre, Student Affairs

Teaching:

• Laura Funk, Department of Sociology and Criminology, Faculty of Arts
• Lauren Goegan, Department of Educational Administration, Foundations, and Psychology, Faculty of Education
• Collette Simonot-Maiello, Desautels Faculty of Music

Category: Life Sciences, Natural Sciences and Engineering

Combination:

• Soheila Karimi, Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences
• Sabine Kuss, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science
• Dustin Isleifson, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Price Faculty of Engineering
• Shirley Thompson, Natural Resources Institute, Clayton Riddell Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources

Research, Scholarly Work and Creative Activities:

• Kirstin Brink, Department of Earth Sciences, Clayton Riddell Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources
• Kenneth Jeffries, Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science
• Fuji Jian, Department of Biosystems Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences
• Claudio Stasolla, Department of Plant Science, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences

Service:

• Harold Aukema, Department of Food and Human Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences
• Susan Cooper, Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science
• Danny Mann, Department of Biosystems Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences

Teaching:

• Leilanie Clayton, Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Science, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences
• Paul Durkin, Department of Earth Sciences, Clayton Riddell Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources
• Natasha Jacobson, Department of Biosystems Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences
• Jennifer Protudjer, Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences

Category: Promoting Indigenous Achievement

• Lucy Delgado, Department of Educational Administration, Foundations and Psychology, Faculty of Education
• Brian Rice, Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management

This Fall the School of Art Gallery, University of Manitoba launches a new season of exhibitions and virtual events.

Anna Binta Diallo, Wanderings (detail), 2020, Towards Gallery. Image courtesy of the artist.

Anna Binta Diallo: Wanderings

Curated by Blair Fornwald, Director/Curator
October 14 to December 4, 2021

A work with seemingly limitless bounds, Anna Binta Diallo’s Wanderings is comprised of an expansive collection of human and animal figures referencing folk stories, primarily from the artist’s Senegalese and French Métis heritage. These figures are collaged from celestial and terrestrial maps and images, charts, diagrams, illustrations, and texts. Diallo draws from a vast archive, attesting to a collective impulse to describe, classify, and hierarchize, to make sense and order out of complexity and chaos, a process that is both deeply human and deeply flawed.  

With each iteration of Wanderings, Diallo creates new narratives, teasing out affinities and disjunctures with and between mythologies and bodies of knowledge. Refusing to privilege one system over another, her work points to the ways they are connected, and to the complexity of human experience and identity.   

Anna Binta Diallo is a Canadian multi-disciplinary visual artist who was born in Dakar, Senegal and raised in Saint-Boniface, on the traditional territory of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation. She received a BFA from the University of Manitoba School of Art (2006) and her MFA from the Transart Institue in Berlin (2013). Her work has been shown in galleries across Canada and internationally in Finland,176 Taiwan, and Germany. In 2019, Diallo’s work was shortlisted for the Salt Spring National Art Prize and in 2021, was awarded the Barbara Sphor Memorial Prize from the Walter Phillips Gallery and the Black Designers of Canada Awards of Excellence. Her works are in the collections of the Royal Bank of Canada, Equity Bank, Scotia Bank, and private collections

Adjunct Programming:

Anna Binta Diallo Artist Talk
Free. Thursday, October 14, 7:00-8:30 pm CDT
Facilitated on Zoom and live-streaming on the School of Art Gallery, UM YouTube channel
Join us online for a talk by Anna Binta Diallo, who will discuss her art and research including her most recent body of work, Wanderings. ASL interpretation and close captioning available. Q&A to follow.

Robert Houle, schoolhouse from Sandy Bay Residential School Series, 2009, oil stick on paper. Collection of the School of Art Gallery. Acquired with funds from the York Wilson Endowment Award, the Canada Council for the Arts.

Robert Houle: The Sandy Bay Residential School Series

October 14 to December 4, 2021

Robert Houle’s Sandy Bay Residential School Series is comprised of twenty-four drawings, drawn over consecutive days. The work was triggered, in part, by a nightmare about an incident that the artist had repressed. The dream, of elementary school abuse, occurred after Houle returned to Sandy Bay for a funeral, and shortly after the Government of Canada’s Official Statement of Apology to residential school survivors. Loose sketches rendered in oilstick depict the school playground, dormitory beds, and religious figures as remembered, fragmentary and haunting. Handwritten Saulteaux texts, inscribed in pencil, capture thoughts that resurfaced as the artist worked on these drawings. Forbidden from speaking his maternal language as a child, thinking and writing in Saulteaux was a part of Houle’s process of healing by letting go of conflict in his mind—a traditional counterpoint to concepts of reconciliation and forgiveness.

Robert Houle is a contemporary Anishinaabe Saulteaux artist, curator, and writer. A member of Sandy Bay First Nation, Manitoba, Houle lives in Toronto. He received a BA in Art History from the University of Manitoba, a BA in Art Education from McGill University, and studied at the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, Austria. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Founder’s Achievement Award from the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts (2020), two honourary doctorates, the 2015 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship (2003), the Toronto Arts Award (2001) and the Janet Braide Memorial Award for Excellence in Canadian Art History (1993).

Thirza Cuthand, Medicine Bundle, 2020, 09:33 minutes, colour, English. Courtesy of Vtape.

Thirza Cuthand: Medicine Bundle

Curated by Blair Fornwald, Director/Curator
October 14 to December 4, 2021

Weaving together family narratives and current thoughts on the pandemic, the ethics of representation, and the nature of the sacred, Thirza Cuthand discusses a medicine bundle which was used to heal the artist’s great-great-grandfather from a Gatling gunshot wound in 1885, and her grandfather from the Spanish flu in 1918. In this film, Cuthand reflects on the ways that the bear cub spirit contained within the since-buried bundle has continued to protect her and her family from the trauma and diseases brought on by colonization.

Thirza Jean Cuthand was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada in 1978, and grew up in Saskatoon. Since 1995, she has been making short experimental narrative videos and films about sexuality, madness, Queer identity and love, and Indigeneity, which have screened in festivals internationally, including the Tribeca Film Festival (New York City), Mix Brasil Festival of Sexual Diversity (São Paulo), ImagineNATIVE (Toronto) Ann Arbour Film Festival, Images (Toronto) Berlinale (Berlin), and Oberhausen International Short Film Festival. Cuthand’s work has also been presented at galleries including the Remai Modern (Saskatoon), the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), the Walker Art Centre (Minneapolis), and the 2019 Whitney Biennial (New York City).

Extended Thursday Hours!

Starting October, the School of Art Gallery will be open late Thursdays from 10:00 am to 8:00 pm!

Hours
Monday–Wednesday + Friday, 10:00 am–4:00 pm, Thursday, 10:00 am–8:00 pm

Visitor protocols

• Visitors must provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination and government photo ID to access the galleries.
• Visitors must wear a 3-ply mask and maintain physical distancing in all spaces.
• Hand sanitizing stations have been placed at the entrance of the gallery.
• Please self-assess your health before visiting the gallery. Are you exhibiting any symptoms of COVID-19 (cough, difficulty breathing, headache, body aches, sore throat, loss of taste and smell, fever, and chills)? Have you been in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19? If you are exhibiting any of these symptoms or have been exposed, please do not visit the gallery and reschedule for a later date.
• Please be respectful of our staff and each other. We are here to ensure a safe space for everyone.
• Review all UM COVID-19 protocols and recovery plans here.