Charles Campbell: An Ocean to Livity opens at Surrey Art Gallery, April 15

Exhibition on display until June 4 uses breath to explore Black resilience and community

SPONSORED POST BY Surrey Art Gallery

Charles Campbell, Maroonscape 3 Finding Accompong, 2021, wood and metal. Photo by Scott Little

Surrey Art Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Charles Campbell: An Ocean to Livity, presented with community partner The Black Arts Centre, on April 15 from 6:30 pm to 9 pm. The evening will begin with a conversation between Campbell and Elliot Ramsey, Curator at The Polygon Gallery.

From the intimacy of a quiet inhalation to the distance between continents, Charles Campbell: An Ocean to Livity brings together large-scale metal and mixed media sculptures along with immersive and participatory multichannel audio installations.

Tapping into the fecundity of the Black diasporic imagination, Campbell reconstructs and reinvents lost connections, lamenting the violent disruptions of the past while forging a home for Black communities’ strength of being. Many of the installations in An Ocean to Livity are inspired in part by sites and histories of Jamaican anticolonial resistance and slave rebellion.

Central to the exhibition is “Black Breath Archive”, an installation of breath recordings from residents in Surrey and across the Lower Mainland. Campbell strips away racial hierarchies and holds up Black breath as its own force: a carrier of ancestry and experience, a creator of community, and something that—even in its most subtle presentation—changes the way people think, feel, and live.

“Livity” is a Rastafarian word that means way of life, or the life force present in every living thing. The artwork in Campbell’s exhibition reflects that notion by evoking a sense of journey, worldly interconnectedness, and communal struggle against the injustices of times past and present, geographies far and near.

Campbell is a Victoria-based multidisciplinary artist, writer, and curator. His sculptures, paintings, sonic installations, and performances have been exhibited in Canada and internationally. He is the recipient of the 2022 VIVA Award from the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation, and the 2020 City of Victoria Creative Builder Award.

On May 13 from 2 pm to 3:30 pm, Campbell will lead an exhibition tour that delves into the ideas, histories, and experiences that make up An Ocean to Livity.

Tickets for the exhibition are free, and more information is available at Surrey Art Gallery.

Post sponsored by Surrey Art Gallery.