The State of Blackness

The Centre for the Study of Black Canadian Diaspora invites you to join multidisciplianry artist, cultural faciltator, and educator, Justin Randolph Thompson for a presentation on the Black Archive Alliance, Italy

Wednesday, January 10, 2024 at 6pm - 8pm
Location 205 Richmond St W, OCADU, Room 410

BLACK ARCHIVE ALLIANCE
curated by BHMF

Black Archive Alliance was the first research platform advanced by "The Recovery Plan*. It was designed to facilitate the development and proliferation of research dedicated to Black history within and beyond Italian archives that speak to diasporic studies and globally inscribed Blackness.

Collapsing personal and public archives and advancing a critical engagement with documents and images, this platform, since its inception in 2018, has worked with over 30 sites and more than 20 researchers. The selection of research presented for this occasion looks to the forms of social resistance employed to maintain a sense of cultural origins in the face of calls for assimilation masked through the language of integration. The display is enriched by a meditation on experimental methodologies for sharing the Black past with an insistence on narrative possibilities beyond institutional walls and a gesture towards the annotations that are needed in order to take a position in relation to the recovery from the violence of distortions advanced by white constructions of Black culturral values.

*Further details in the comments below ⬇️

Happy Holidays from the Centre of Study of Black Canadian Diaspora! 🎉

Thank you all for your support!

Keep an eye out for 2024, we look forward to sharing new upcoming events!

Look out for the next stop of 𝘗𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘙𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 / 𝘙𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘴 𝘗𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦 opening next week!


This touring group exhibition features the work of ten Black Women artists who participated in the historical 1989 DAWA exhibition, 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘞𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘯: 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘞𝘦 𝘌𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳, the first national exhibition to address the exclusion of Black women artists from the visual landscape of Canada.


The exhibition attests and affirms the artists’ sustained practice of producing art that articulates the heterogeneity of perspectives and forms that constitute Black Canadian women’s art today. The works in the exhibition comprise of paintings, photography, text, installations, video, augmented reality, and sculpture.


𝘗𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘙𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 / 𝘙𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘴 𝘗𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦 is curated by Dr. Andrea Fatona. It will run in the Libby Leshgold Gallery from September 15 - November 5, 2023. An opening reception will be held on Thursday September 14th at 6pm.


This is a Diasporic African Women Artists (DAWA) Legacy Collective Exhibition, which originated at A Space (Toronto) and is circulated with assistance from the Art Gallery of Hamilton.

The State of Blackness is now The Centre for the Study of Black Canadian Diaspora ✨

The aim of the Centre for the Study of Black Canadian Diaspora is to make visible and provide access to the works of contemporary Black artists, craftspeople, curators, and critics in Canada who have been historically erased from the imaginary of Canadian visual culture. Dr. Fatona’s research intends to expand our understanding of Canadian Black contemporary cultural production from 1987 to the present.

Dr. Andrea Fatona is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Art at OCAD University, and a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Canadian Black Diasporic Cultural Production.

Congrats, Kapwani Kiwanga and Gaetane Verna! 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

Rising Star Kapwani Kiwanga to Represent Canada at 2024 Venice Biennale She is the first Black woman to represent the country at the world’s biggest art exhibition.

https://www.dal.ca/news/2022/10/28/celebrated-artist-david-woods-to-receive-honorary-degree-at-fall.html?utm_source=Today%40Dal&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dalnews&fbclid=IwAR2kkzyzPsFMs3CdiL5PL85hhD4ZiaEMdIwE7dOoZptkFeC2tP1Ik1xebVc

Celebrated artist David Woods to receive honorary degree at Fall Convocation David Woods — artist, community builder and curator of African Nova Scotian stories — is set to receive one of Dalhousie's highest honours as part of Fall Convocation ceremonies this November.

Tomorrow, 7pm!!
Artist talk, "We Live As We Die", Gallery 101

Artist Talk: We Live As We Die | www.g101.ca Join us on Zoom with We Live As We Die artists Ayo Tsalithaba, Delali Cofie, Jalen Frizzell, Kalkidan Assefa, Mariama Tani, Yasin Osman and curator Sakinna Gairey to discuss release, ephemerality, healing, and togetherness in relation to their practices and expressions of grief.

The Alchemy Lecture
"The Alchemy Lecture is a multi-vocal model that brings together a constellation of three to four thinkers and practitioners from different disciplines and geographies annually to think together and in public on the most pressing issues of our times.
The lecture will be delivered by four renowned alchemists: Dele Adeyemo (UK) architect, creative director, and urban theorist; Natalie Diaz (US/Mojave/Akimel O’otham) poet, MacArthur Foundation Fellow and Founding Director of the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands, Arizona State University; Nadia Yala Kisukidi (France) Associate Professor in philosophy, Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis University; and Rinaldo Walcott (Canada) Writer, and Professor in the Women and Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto."

The Alchemy Lecture The Alchemy Lecture is a multi-vocal model that brings together a constellation of three to four thinkers and practitioners from different disciplines and geographies annually to think together and in public on the most pressing issues of our times.