SANDRA BREWSTER, ROOTS, 2021-2022
In her outdoor photographic installation, Roots, Toronto-based artist Sandra Brewster explores the long history of Black presence in the urban wilderness. Developed during her tenure as Koerner Artist in Residence at Evergreen Brick Works, the photographs document the area’s plant life, greeting visitors as they explore the valley…
IMANI DENNISON AND LATETRA METTS-OWENS, NAKED TRUTH
In the series titled “Naked Truth,” a collaboration between fine artist Latetra Metts-Owens and Photographer, Imani Dennison, explores the truth behind people naked selves. In phase one of this project, subjects were interviewed and recorded on film, revealing things about themselves that were both uncomfortable and secret…
SHIKEITH, STILL WATERS RUN DEEP, 2021
Shikeith explores how Black queer re-making is a sacred space and practice in his two-part installation, still waters run deep / fall in your ways (2021). Using poetry, historical narratives, ambient recordings of children's rhymes, shades of blue, dance, and organic elements such as water, Shikeith maps Black men's negotiations of intimacy and routes toward freedom beyond architectural and societal constraints…
ZORA J MURFF, THE DEVIL HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
In this collection of collages, Murff uses methodologies of enlightened witnessing and appropriation to demonstrate how a global conspiracy of anti-Black genocide has existed and continues to persist through systemic oppression…
KENNEDI CARTER, RIDIN’ SUCKA FREE
Ridin’ Sucka Free is a series that came about during conversations surrounding Black life in relation to horsemanship and agriculture. Pop culture’s interest in Black cowboys quickly rose following the release of Lil Nas X’s song Old Town Road…
MARLON RIGGS, BLACK IS...BLACK AIN'T, 1995
The final film by filmmaker Marlon Riggs, BLACK IS…BLACK AIN'T, jumps into the middle of explosive debates over Black identity. White Americans have always stereotyped African Americans. But the rigid definitions of "Blackness" that African Americans impose on each other, Riggs claims, have also been devastating…
RENEE COX, IT SHALL BE NAMED, 1994
In this 1992 work by Cox, a collage in the shape of a crucifix, is intricately constructed from several manipulated photographic negatives…
KALI SPITZER, AN EXPLORATION OF RESILIENCE
An Exploration of Resilience is about identity, culture, strength, vulnerability, and love - these images are about resilience. This work investigates different facets of people and how they explore themselves…
QUALEASHA WOOD, SELECTED WORKS
Qualeasha Wood is an interdisciplinary artist whose work contemplates realities around black female ontology that do and might exist. Inspired by a familial relationship to textiles, queer craft, Microsoft Paint and internet avatars Wood's tufted and tapestry pieces mesh traditional craft and contemporary technological materials…
BERNICE MULENGA, SELECT SELF PORTRAITS, 2019-2022
Bernice Mulenga is a British-Congolese photographer with a distinct aptitude for archiving, documenting and interrogating the world around them…
WANGECHI MUTU, HISTOLOGY OF THE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF UTERINE TUMORS, 2006
This set of twelve mixed-media works was made early in Mutu’s career, at a point when her practice was focused on collage. Drawing from disparate sources including medical journals, fashion magazines, pornography, and ethnographic texts, Mutu’s way of critiquing these publications is to cut them up and reassemble them for her own means…
DREAD SCOTT, A MAN WAS LYNCHED BY POLICE YESTERDAY, 2015
In 2015, Walter Scott fled for his life, stalked by a policeman who then cold bloodedly shot him in the back. We all saw the video and in response to this murder I made the artwork, “A Man Was Lynched by Police Yesterday…
CAMERON A. GRANGER, DREAM DROP DISTANCE
In Dream Drop Distance, Granger uses the histories embodied in karaoke and soul train lines to weave us a new possible future on the other side of disaster. Two custom karaoke booths and their playlists invite visitors to undertake impromptu duets with one another, opening themselves up to the indeterminacies of encounter…
NYKELLE DEVIVO, THE CROSSROADS, 2013-2024
Raised in a deeply religious household and honoring the language of Afro Spiritualism, my images reflect lifetimes of reverence for the divine. Throughout the diaspora (and from antiquity to our futures), we’ve relied on the ancient technology of refracted light as a tool for divination, which, with intentionality, can be used to embody (or catch) holy spirits...
NJAIMEH NJIE, DID YOU GET EVERYTHING?
What do we take, and what is left behind when we leave home? With audio and visual collage, this installation takes visitors inside the collective memory of a fictional family that is leaving their home...
MICKALENE THOMAS, OH MICKEY, 2008
My video and painting installation Oh Mickey! (2008), was inspired by a Balthus painting called La Toilette. In the Balthus, a young girl is wearing lube socks and red slippers, standing alone in an intimate interior space. In my piece, I have a model standing in one of my installations completely nude, except for tube socks and red heels, singing Toni Basil's “Mickey” song...
GROANA MELENDEZ, EL NOMBRE MÍO, AJENO
El Nombre Mío, Ajeno is an exhibition of photographs, videos and other lens-based works by Groana Melendez. In this work Groana creates an understanding of the interconnectedness of relationships, class and identity...
GOLDEN, ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE THIS IS NOT YOUR HISTORY, 2016
Robert Mapplethorpe This Is Not Your History was created as a direct retaliation to the Portfolio Z series shot and captured by Robert Mapplethorpe in the late ’70s. In photo history, Mapplethorpe’s works are often sourced and attributed as visual etymologies for queer representations—losing sight of how the gaze of whiteness makes a spectacle of blackness when its being is rendered as just ‘body.’..
EBONY G. PATTERSON,... THREE KINGS WEEP ..., 2018
Ebony G. Patterson uses lavish surfaces and verdant motifs to entice viewers to contemplate not only the power of beauty and fashion but also historical and contemporary violence against Black people. In . . . three kings weep . . ., a trio of young men shed tears as they sit silently before a backdrop of floral wallpaper and fluttering artificial butterflies...
AVION PEARCE, SHADOWS
My intention with Shadows was to very lovingly depict this romance and moment in time. I want to see me more Black lesbian love stories. To read them and to see them in ways that are not just about tragedy and death...