Highlights
At the base of Maple Street on the scenic waterfront sits Barrie's majestic landmark, the Spirit Catcher. Ron Baird was one of nine sculptors asked to submit proposals for EXPO '86 and he was one of the two sculptors chosen. The theme of EXPO '86 was transportation and communication. With this is mind the artist thought of his sculpture as spiritual antennae. The imagery of the Spirit Catcher was influenced by the west coast location and the Thunderbird of First Nations' mythology. The Thunderbird is a messenger who carries our dreams and desires to the Creator. The 20 tonne steel sculpture took six months to make and was originally installed at False Creek in Vancouver, British Columbia. Once EXPO '86 ended, the sculpture was purchased by the Helen McCrea Peacock...
In 2001 the MacLarenArtCentre became the recipient of the Sovfoto Archive, an extraordinary archive comprising 23,116 vintage Soviet press photographs. This archive contains the most comprehensive photographic portrayal of the Stalinist USSR that exists outside of the state archives in Moscow.
The Sovfoto Archive consists of two distinct halves: World War II and Militaria (approximately 10,000 photographs) and Images from Daily Life (approximately 13,000 photographs) organized into 52 categories and 162 sub-categories. Covering a wide range of areas from Soviet society, these state-sanctioned photographs tell the ìofficial storyî of the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1959. Republics and nationalities, economy, industry and agriculture, politics, the sciences and the arts, leaders and...