PRESENT is an exhibition featuring audio, visual and spoken word artists exploring the ways in which language and music can be used to create and communicate meaning. Through various mediums, they examine how words and sounds can be used to convey emotion, express ideas, and tell stories that highlight the creativity of the African and Caribbean diaspora. In doing so, they offer a unique perspective on the power of being “Present” and its ability to shape our understanding of the world. Present is a gift that is right here & now.
Curated by: Tafui
A GAP
Listen to the poem that inspired work for this series - “A Gap” by Naila Keleta-Mae’s.
NEW VISIONS OF POWER
NAILA KELETA-MAE
Inspired by Naila Keleta-Mae "A Gap", in this project, Franco’s primary intention was to remind you that just as gravity binds you to this unique planet Earth, your singular bodies are connected and intricately tied to each other by forces of equal magnitude. This series is an open invitation to re-evaluate all the invisible gaps you too often create between yourselves and the other/them by contemplating the beautiful grace and weightlessness of a world where the distance between and through your bodies slowly vanishes away and intertwines you closer together.
Location: 555 Burrard Street, Vancouver
Supported by: Bentall Centre, Evo Car Share, Softlanding
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Franco E. is a visual artist living and working in Montreal, Canada. Raised by his single mother, he learned to hold a pen and trace a line before walking on his feet. His sensual and captivating drawings take you into a world where the body plays freely. Vibrant colours highlight curves and expressions, influenced by Cubism and the Japanese aesthetic concept of Ma. Through this, a range of emotions and ideas are offered; free to escape into his sublimated bodies.
SEISMIC WAVES
Natasha Cunningham
Nya Lewis
Naila Keleta-Mae’s
“Seismic Waves” by Natasha Cunningham and word design by Nya Lewis is an interpretation inspired by Naila Keleta-Mae’s poem, “A Gap”. “Our Earth is emitting a stifling heat. Sound the alarms. Be alarmed. Be Alarmed.” Like seismic waves, this piece echoes repeated warnings, from haphazard patterns, and symbols of seismic waves to a sharp gradient line that mimics rising sea levels. At the centre is Earth, minds and lives that emit waves of caution that you should indeed “ [be] alarmed. Be alarmed.”
Location: Winter Art Hub - 850 W. Georgia
Supported by: Comma Properties
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Natasha Cunningham is a Graphic Designer and Visual Artist based in Kingston, Jamaica with a BFA in Fine Arts at the Edna Manley College of the Visual Arts. Her body of work can be described as 'Digital Photo Collage', which is usually portrait-focused and serves as an exploration of her love for collage art, texture, layering, and storytelling.
Natasha has had the opportunity to work with Adobe, Netflix, Amazon Publishing, Harper Collins, The New Yorker Mag, and Oprah Mag to name a few. She is the Photoshop Splash Screen featured Artist for 2022 and was featured as a Global Creator by Adobe.
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Nya Lewis works in digital text based installation to depict and visualize diasporan aesthetics and coding. Inspired by the screen printing, caricature and graphic design of the civil rights movement, her work approaches visual culture through manipulation and access, critically examining representations of Black diasporas and the social, economic, and political conditions that form them. Her design practice explores the ways we construct meaning from and respond to imagery shaped in reference to Black life.
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Dr. Naila Keleta-Mae is a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Race, Gender, and Performance; Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo; and a multi-disciplinary artist. She is the Principal Investigator of Black And Free, a research-creation project that includes commissioning 13 Black artists in Ontario to create new works in 2022-2023 and multi-year partnership agreements with Citizen Brand; Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum; NOR; Studio Otherness; TheEDGE; THEMUSEUM; Wilfrid Laurier University Press, and Young People’s Theatre.
PRESENT - POETRY & DRUM CLASH
Experience local Poetry & Music & food from across the Afro Caribbean & African diaspora. It features a Drum Clash, inspired by Jamaican Sound class culture using Drummers from the Afro-Caribbean countries with local Asian & Indigenous cultures in friendly competition.
PERIODT: BLACK QUEER POETRY SLAM
Poetry and storytelling are conduits for intergenerational healing and intergenerational joy. In commemoration of Black history month, we amplify, celebrate and illuminate the unique intersections that Black-Indigi-Queer folks bring to the community. Our legacies can never be erased as we bear witness to them together. Periodt: Black Queer Poetry Slam will bring Black queer poets to the stage. Featuring special performance by poet, actor, and performing artist, Staceyann Chin
Curated by:
TAFUI
Tafui is a fine artist, muralist and designer originally from Xaymaca / Kingston, Jamaica. Her work spans various media, which includes fine art, muralism, and product design.
Tafui’s work has been exhibited at and is currently being represented by the Ottawa Art Gallery and Vancouver Art Gallery. Tafui holds a D.E.C in studio arts from Dawson College and a B.F.A. in Design Art from Concordia University. Her work is in national and international collections such the City of Ottawa, City of Vancouver and the Bank of Jamaica Public Art collection.