Yellowknife artist displaying vinoks made of garbage in national museum

Yellowknife textile and fibre artist Erin Suliak’s vinoks, inspired by locations around the city, are on display at Saskatoon’s Ukrainian Museum of Canada until September.

A vinok is a Ukrainian headpiece worn by women and traditionally made using flowers and plants. Suliak said they are worn during weddings or made by young girls to predict their future marriage.

To make the 12 vinoks on display, Suliak said she chose areas she’d often visit with her family or dog, then imagined what vinok a young girl would make using materials from those locations.

“In many cases this is bits of garbage, sometimes bits of sort-of kicked lichen. There are a few flowers in there too but it’s mostly, frankly, garbage actually. But it’s garbage that’s been transformed,” said Suliak.

The completed vinoks were photographed at the sites that inspired them. The pieces and photos are on display at the national museum until September 26.

“It’s been incredibly invigorating. It’s been a very supportive environment,” said Suliak of an artist residency at the museum that accompanied the exhibit.

“The people that work here are very passionate about Ukrainian culture, whether it’s from Ukraine or within the diaspora.”

Suliak has been researching new forms of vinoks and is planning on making one to mark her time spent at the museum.

One of Suliak’s favourite vinoks on display is inspired by Yellowknife’s sand pits, an area of rugged, sandy land on the city’s western periphery that is home to all kinds of outdoor recreation. She said that vinok is made using broken pieces of dirt bikes, shotgun shells and pieces of tennis balls.

Suliak chooses to use garbage or recycled material in her art because she said it reflects the resourcefulness of northerners. She believes reused materials hold memories that she likes to consider in her art.

Using garbage also reflects the ongoing war in Ukraine, Suliak said. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine happened at the outset of her project.

“There’s a lot of mourning that goes into these. We think about the suffering, we think about the lives lost, we think about the land that’s been transformed permanently by retreating Russian armies,” said Suliak.

“Making these vinoks out of human-made garbage is also a reflection of what’s happening to many places in Ukraine as they get completely obliterated through fighting.”

Suliak said she has received a lot of responses to the exhibit and hopes to display the vinoks in an NWT show soon, so northerners have a chance to see them without needing to travel.

“Everyone’s bringing a new theme to me, especially the folks at the museum itself,” she said.

“It’s been really gratifying for people to be picking up what I’m putting down. There’s just a lot to say and there’s lots of different ways to experience it.”