Black Arts Centre curates two fall exhibits at Surrey Art Gallery
Arshi Chadha, Moroti Soji-George, and Vanessa Fajemisin are among the centre’s co-directors who are curating shows that explore the plurality of Blackness
Post Sponsored by surrey art gallery
Concealed Cultures: Visualizing the Black Vernacular: Michèle Bygodt, Allan, Gnoul series, 2021–2022, photograph.
Surrey Art Gallery is pleased to announce two exhibits this fall with the Black Arts Centre: Concealed Cultures: Visualizing the Black Vernacular and I see; I breathe; I am!. Both shows open on September 17 and run to December 11 at the Gallery.
Curator Moroti Soji-George of the Black Arts Centre will facilitate a panel conversation with exhibiting artists Michele Bygodt, Olúwáṣọlá Kẹh́ ìndé Olówó-Aké, and Odera Igbokwe at the opening reception on September 17 at 6:30 pm. Admission is free.
The Black Arts Centre is a Black youth-owned and -operated artist-run centre and community space in Surrey. Soji-George, Arshi Chadha, and Vanessa Fajemisin are just a few co-directors of the Black Arts Centre who are curating the two exhibits in the Gallery.
Concealed Cultures: Visualizing the Black Vernacular: Ogheneofegor Obuwoma, In Memory of Who We Were, 2021, video still.
Concealed Cultures: Visualizing the Black Vernacular connects seven artists (Oluseye, Karice Mitchell, Fegor Obuwoma, Clancy A.F Ngbolah, Odera Igbokwe, Michele Bygodt, and Nura Ali) through a desire to make visible the specificities of language that emerge as a result of lived experiences in the diasporic world through storytelling, portraiture, film, photography, printmaking, and other media. Themes include community, language, racial violence, voyeurism, spirituality, Black agency, erasure, and cultural reconnection.
I see; I breathe; I am! sees artists Nancy Ainomugisha and Olúwáṣọlá Kẹ́hìndé Olówó-Aké building on the theme of plurality of Blackness presented in Concealed Cultures.
Going beyond themes of representation, Ainomugisha and Olówó-Aké use storytelling, photography, and film to expand the conversation on how society interprets Blackness while highlighting the multifaceted nature of the Black female and femme experience.
I see; I breathe; I am!: Olúwásolá Kéhìndé Olówó-Aké (Sola Olowo-Ake), Ahon Dudu, 2021, photograph.
Concealed Cultures: Visualizing the Black Vernacular: Oluseye Ogunlesi, Demilade II, 2020; beads, cowry shells, leather, wood, synthetic hair, stripped tire, found rubber, and metal artifact.
The opening reception will also celebrate Surrey Art Gallery’s other fall exhibits: video- based artwork in Poets with a Video Camera; Henry Tsang: Tansy Point; and Zachery Cameron Longboy: Guardian of Sleep; the colourful vinyl murals Echoes by Atheana Picha and It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see by Sandeep Johal; paintings in Fraser Valley Chapter Presents: Fresh Paint! and mixed media in Surrey Art Teachers Association: Connect.
In addition to the artists’ panel at the opening reception, several free events are scheduled throughout the course of the Black Arts Centre exhibitions: art performance and film screening on October 8, a curators’ tour on October 29, and an interactive workshop on creation in spoken form on November 12.
Concealed Cultures: Visualizing the Black Vernacular: Karice Mitchell, take care, 2021, archival inkjet print on adhesive vinyl.
For more information, see Surrey Art Gallery.
Post sponsored by Surrey Art Gallery.