Ukrainian heritage art installations in Edmonton explore connections to past

The Legacy Mosaic art installation at the Alberta Council of the Ukrainian Arts Gallery on Sept. 5, 2024. (CTV News Edmonton)

Two art installations commemorating Ukrainian culture in Canada are on display in Edmonton through next week.

One of them is a project six years in the making.

The Legacy Mosaic is made up of thousands of printing blocks rescued from a 100-year-old printing press in Winnipeg.

Images, instructions, music notes and recipes are pressed into the blocks that were used to print newspapers and books.

When viewed from a distance, the blocks form a traditional pattern.

"The significance of this mosaic is that it connects us to the past, to the ancestors," artist and academic Larisa Sembaliuk Cheladyn, the lead for the project, told CTV News Edmonton.

"There are so many who have found their own relatives in it ... The smiles on people's faces have been really rewarding. Like I know I did something good."

A team of people is working to create an online database with the history of each piece.

Next to the mosaic at the Alberta Council for the Ukrainian Arts Gallery is the display 'Embroidery Tells a Story,' which shows how 1930s-era research worked to preserve folk-art traditions.

The exhibits are on display at the gallery, 10554 110 St. NW in Edmonton, through Sept. 14.