Wintertime Stories

On this page:

1. About the artwork
2. Additional details

About the artwork

A community wraps its arms around the natural features and creatures that sustain it. Blue human forms echo glacier peaks that reach for shimmering golden skies. Warm pink hearts beam from beings with wings, claws, paws, hooves, leaves and blooms. We are all bound together by our shared environment and social fabric.

This is one way to see Wintertime Stories, a 15.8m x 2m wall sculpture by Isaac Murdoch and Nyle Miigizi Johnston, installed at KPL’s Southwest Community Library in winter 2025. The artwork was produced through the City’s 1% for public art policy and chosen by a jury of local citizens and artists for its links to Anishinabek sharing traditions, intersecting cultures and life in northern woodlands.

Hear the artists talk about their collaboration and reverence for creating community and connection:

Wintertime Stories represents an important acknowledgement of First Nations’ relationships to the land on which KPL Southwest is built. It brings Indigenous representation to the City’s public art collection for the first time, supported by the artists’ essential collaboration with Highness Global. 

The artwork can be viewed in the main gathering space at KPL Southwest, or from outside. Get a glimpse of Wintertime Stories as Nyle Miigizi Johnston describes its features, meanings and materials: 

Additional details

Title: Wintertime Stories 

Artists: Isaac Murdoch and Nyle Miigizi Johnston 

Year: 2025

Medium: Stained and CNC-cut Baltic birch plywood, laser-cut acrylic and mirrored acrylic 

Description: Mixed-media wall sculpture featuring depictions of woodland animals and human forms linked together to represent our connection to nature and our roles as stewards and protectors of the lands. The artwork is embedded with important messages about history, culture, eco-consciousness, cultivating community and the transfer of knowledge through generations.

Artist biographies: Isaac Murdoch is from Serpent River First Nation, of the Fish Clan and Ojibwe. He is a father, a community builder and land protector, a storyteller, visual artist and singer-songwriter. Nyle Miigizi Johnston is from Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation. He is a storyteller, multidisciplinary visual artist, medicinal knowledge sharer and an Oshkaabewis (traditional helper).

Commission: $67,000

Location: Southwest Community Library, 100 Rosenburg Way, Kitchener

Image details: Photo by Nigel Nolan; videos by Bawaadan Collective