Kerri Parnell: Pause in Plight

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Kerri Parnell, "Pause in Plight," 2022

Gallery Vertigo, in partnership with the Artist Michelle Loughery Sunflower Project, proudly announces the opening of our newest exhibit, Pause in Plight— curated by Winnipeg visual artist Kerri Parnell, in partnership with the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund(CFWWIRF). 

Opening reception taking place on June 3 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Pause in Plight is a touring exhibition making its way across Canada between 2020 and 2025 to help bring awareness to this historical injustice.

The exhibition includes a series of artworks by Kerri Parnell that depict the internment of Ukrainian and Eastern Europeans in Canada during the First World War and is laid out in five different sections: War Posters, Light Installation, Emotional Interpretation Series, Old Eyes Series, and To Hell with The Alien Enemy. The aim is to inform the public of the WWI national security fears and wartime prejudices which led to the internment of 8,579 men, among them women and children, identified as “enemy aliens”.

Pause in Plight began to take shape in 2016 when Parnell was living in Cherryville, B.C. The town’s historical society approached Parnell to paint a sign to commemorate the Monashee Mountain Internment Camp site, where prisoners were held during the First World War.

“What I realized with the research of this topic is that people that were interned a hundred years ago were affected, but it still reverberates through generations,” said Parnell.

“I think the biggest thing that fascinates me is that there’s so many people that don’t know about it, and that we’re not taught about it in schools,” Parnell said. “It’s heartbreaking to know they really existed, and they really did suffer.”

This modern and timely exhibit will help educate and enlighten mainstream Canadians by raising national awareness of Canada’s first national interment operations. There were 24 internment camps across Canada in WW1 between 1914-1920; this is still unknown to much of the population today. Internment operations were authorized by The War Measures Act (22 August 1914) and continued until June 1920, nearly two years after the Great War with the Armistice (11 November 1918). The Vernon Internment camp closed on February 20, 1920.

Parnell feels that we can only move forward in a positive way as a nation, if we truly understand our past and learn from our mistakes.

Gallery Vertigo gratefully acknowledges the funding contribution received from Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund (CFWWIRF) for Pause in Plight

Gallery Vertigo & The Sunflower Project

Kerri Parnell creates art that inspires community connections. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Kerri attended the University of Manitoba’s School of Fine Arts and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her passion is to collaborate with others on projects that promote social awareness and a change. Her results are both thought provoking and aesthetically beautiful. Nowhere is this more evident than Pause in Plight.