Manitoba·Absolutely Manitoba

Artist takes work from Point Douglas to Buckingham Palace

Ceramicist Jordan Van Sewell, whose work is a mélange of whimsical character studies, is at a crossroads. How will he stay relevant as a senior artist? Van Sewell faces this in Moral Injuries, airing Aug. 12 at 8 p.m. on CBC Manitoba and streaming free on Gem now.

Prolific Winnipeg artist Jordan Van Sewell the focus of new CBC documentary Moral Injuries

Carmen Ponto · for CBC News · Posted: Aug 11, 2023 10:58 AM EDT | Last Updated: August 11, 2023

A bearded man with red hair holds a sculpture that is a self-portrait. — In a new documentary for CBC, Winnipeg artist Jordan Van Sewell reflects on his life making sculptures that push social commentary. (Nicholas Treeshin)

Moral Injuries: The Art of Jordan Van Sewell
Airs on CBC Manitoba Saturday, Aug. 12, at 8 p.m.

Stream free on Gem now.

An artful piece of Manitoba history once held an audience with the Queen.

Winnipeg artist Jordan Van Sewell's small ceramic sculpture of a York boat carrying a beaver, a polar bear, a buffalo and a Manitoba flag was purchased by a former lieutenant-governor as a gift to Queen Elizabeth II.

"It's definitely identifiable as Manitoba made," Van Sewell says with a laugh. "But who knows where it ended up?"

A wall of ceramic art and a sculpture of a bearded man in the foreground — Inside ceramacist Jordan Van Sewell's studio, a collection of work is hung on the wall. The longtime Winnipeg artist has created sculptures of himself over the years, including this one. (Nicholas Treeshin)

Van Sewell's art and his Winnipeg roots are the focus of Moral Injuries: The Art of Jordan Van Sewell, a new CBC documentary for Absolutely Manitoba.

The hour-long doc traces Van Sewell's life from when he was a young artist finding his voice to the established senior artist he is today.

Jordan has one of the best descriptions of Winnipeg I've ever heard.- Nicholas Treeshin, producer at Blackwatch Entertainment

Van Sewell opens up about ending his longtime residency at The Forks and the transition to a new phase of his artistic life.

The film is also a love letter to the city.

"Jordan has one of the best descriptions of Winnipeg I've ever heard," says Nicholas Treeshin, a producer with Winnipeg's Blackwatch Entertainment who wrote, directed and produced the new film.

"Winnipeg is an anomaly in the middle of the prairie," Van Sewell says in the film. "To exist here is like being a pioneer.… The eight months of winter that we get here is really a wonderful time to work on your craft, to hone your skills."

A man behind a video camera focuses on a man with a beard and red hair and a second man with dark hair. — Jordan Van Sewell, left, has been a fixture on the Winnipeg art scene for decades. (Nicholas Treeshin)

Van Sewell's ceramic works, which have sold for prices ranging from $60 to tens of thousands of dollars, feature colourful creatures, people, vehicles and buildings. They're part whimsy and part social commentary.

Moral Injury — the title of one of his pieces as well as the documentary — is the latter. And Van Sewell ties it back to the city he calls home.

A moral injury is defined in medical terms as a psychological wound suffered by people faced with circumstances that can force them to go against their ethical code.

man with beard, red hair and hat works on clay sculpture in studio as video camera records him — In the new biographical documentary Moral Injuries, Winnipeg artist Jordan Van Sewell opens up about his path as an artist and the pressure to remain relevant over a career that has spanned many decades. (Nicholas Treeshin)

Van Sewell has a different, personal, definition: "A moral injury is something that erodes that rock-solid foundation that you have been building in life. It's like you're suddenly in this place where trust was eroded for you."

He views a moral injury as an act of injustice by a person or a system. And he's reminded of this injustice every time he steps out the door and into his beloved neighbourhood of 35 years.

"[Point Douglas] has become a haven for me," Van Sewell says. "But lately, it's becoming a statement of the disintegration of Winnipeg — the homelessness and the drug problem."

Living without hope is the culmination of moral injuries, one on top of the other.- Jordan Van Sewell

He's clear on the fact that he doesn't have solutions for the issues Point Douglas and its residents face. But he feels that moral injuries are in part to blame — and those suffering on the streets as a result are not.

"Living without hope is the culmination of moral injuries, one on top of the other," Van Sewell says.

Van Sewell attributes these moral injuries in part to colonization and what he considers a failed democratic society.

man with beard and red hair works on clay sculpture in studio — Inside his Winnipeg studio, ceramacist Jordan Van Sewell works on a piece intended for his pop-up exhibition at Pulse Gallery inside The Forks. Van Sewell moved out of his own gallery in late 2022 after many years at the busy market. (Nicholas Treeshin)

But regardless of its challenges, Point Douglas is his cherished home and much of his art is made there.

"I never get tired of sitting on my deck and looking at the skyline of Winnipeg and the Red River. It becomes deeply ingrained in who you are and what you are."

While Van Sewell has no expectations that art will solve the city's problems, he has hope that it will get some important conversations started.

"It's remedial, it's therapeutic, it's cathartic — all those things that can result in a greater appreciation for everything around you," he says. "If it can turn grey days into heydays, then have at 'er. "

Watch Moral Injuries: The art of Jordan Van Sewell on Saturday, Aug. 12, at 8 p.m. on CBC Manitoba.

Stream free on CBC Gem now.

Filmmaker Nicholas Treeshin, left, spent months delving into the life of renowned artist Jordan Van Sewell for the new documentary Moral Injuries. Van Sewell opened up about how personal insults over the years inspired his work. (Nicholas Treeshin)