Artistic Responses - Edmonton, 2020
Mitchell Art Gallery
September 15 — December 5, 2020
New to this iteration, curator Seika Boye invited contemporary performing and visual artists — either from or currently based in Alberta — to respond to the archive and consider what the history of Black people dancing in Canada reveals about our contemporary moment.
Featuring dance artists Michèle Moss and Ashley “Colours” Perez, visual artists Braxton Garneau and Preston Pavlis, author Cheryl Foggo, with graphic response by Adriana Contreras, photography by Mike Tan and community responses by Mpoe Mogale and Ivan Touko.
Ashley “Colours” Perez’s Dancing Life, a Graphic Response by Adriana Contreras
In-Gallery Digital Drawing
Digital drawing and collage on paper by Adriana Contreras, 2020
Commissioned graphic response to four hours of oral history interviews conducted by Seika Boye with Ashley Perez about her dancing life.
Braxton Garneau
À Terre, 2020. In-Gallery Painting
Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist. Commissioned response to archival exhibition, It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900-1970.
Cheryl Foggo
Even This Story is Secret. In-Gallery Poem.
Christina Battle
Online Article Article.
It’s About Time (Where was it fun to dance?): a response
Christina Battle, November 2020
“It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900 – 1970 and Now, makes Black culture within Canada more visible: providing evidence of histories and legacies that have always been there despite their deliberate disregard by dominant cultural institutions. Walking through the exhibition feels heavy, but a good kind of heavy—like a weight that is necessary to bear in order to make visible what you always knew was there but couldn’t quite see.”
— Christina Battle
Read the rest of Christina’s response on her website
Ivan Touko, Cherelle George, and Masani St. Rose’s Tour of the Exhibit
In-Gallery Performance (delayed) and Online Video Response.
Community builder, social innovator and entrepreneur, Ivan Touko took a tour of It’s About Time with Cherelle George and Masani St. Rose. He filmed snippets of their reactions as well as wrote a beautiful response piece to the exhibition.
Michèle Moss, Digital Photograph on paper by Mike Tan
In-Gallery Photograph.
Digital photograph on paper by Mike Tan, 2020
Commissioned photographs of Michèle Moss, whose name appears in a dance recital program from the Negro Community Centre 1968, in the archival exhibition It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900-1970.
Mpoe Mogale
Erased, Not Forgotten. Online Video Response.
Preston Pavlis
when the jig is up,
when the act is finished,
when the curtain descends,
In-Gallery Paintin.g
Oil, fabric and pressed flowers on canvas. Courtesy of the artist Commissioned response to archival exhibition, It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900-1970.