Art installations in the new Winnipeg airport have just taken off

Just past "Inside Ice" is the main baggage carousel, which is striking in and of itself. With 55 large circular skylights bordered with glowing blue accent lights, the main luggage carousel is flooded in a natural light that seems both organic and otherworldly.

On the main wall of the carousel area is the piece "Where the sky began / A map of the land" by Jacqueline Metz and Nancy Chew. Metz and Chew's work features a huge aerial map of the city, the surrounding prairie and the rivers which cut through the landscape. Having just been installed, the lights that are meant to brighten the piece from within were yet to be activated so I cannot honestly say what the full visual impact of "Where the sky began / A map of the land" will be like. However the enormous scale of the work, and the fact that it greets you along the staircase as you make your way to baggage, is sure to provide visitors with an immediate talking point as they wait for their bags to arrive. 

The airport itself is saturated with natural sunlight which adds an ethereal element to Ione Thorkelsson's avian work "Incoming." Composed of a vast selection of hanging glass wings, "Incoming" is a most fitting addition to the terminal as the seeming flight path of the wings directs passengers down the spacious, brightly lit terminal. Up close, the detailing on the angelic-looking wings is quite striking, while from afar you could quite easily mistake the work as actual birds flying below the curved wooden ceiling.

The final piece of art is the only one that you must go through security to view. Located in what has now being deemed "Queen's Court"-- it is where Her Royal Highness first entered the city and where her time capsule for the city remains -- Warren Carther's "Aperture" stands, looking somewhat like two icy-blue mini-monoliths starring at one another. Like the other pieces, it too, appears as a dream-like representation from the Canadian landscape with its stacks of glass being instantly representative of the layers of ice that cover northern Manitoba in winter.

The lights for "Aperture" were just being installed and although it was daytime, you could immediately tell what a striking piece it will be after you step off a plane at night and are greeted by it upon entering the terminal.