ALYSSA FEARON

Written and directed by Cheryl Foggo
Featuring interviewee Leander Lane
Produced by Alyssa Camille Fearon

In and around 1910, approximately 1,500 African-Americans left their homes in Oklahoma and other places in the south, fleeing targeted violence and enforcement of the segregationist Jim Crow laws. The families migrated north to the Canadian Prairies in search of refuge and better opportunities. When the migrants arrived, they built homes, schools, and churches; they also faced hostility and violence from many settlers who reacted to the growing Black population on the Prairies with anger and prejudice. 

In Saskatchewan, the group of migrants became known as the Shiloh People and lived in a small rural community outside of Maidstone (57 km east of Lloydminster). Shortly after they arrived, the Shiloh People built the Shiloh Baptist Church and Cemetery, a place for the community to worship, gather, celebrate, and bury their ancestors.

The film, For Caesar, explores the beginnings of the Shiloh Baptist Church and Cemetery and its significance to the Shiloh People and their descendants.

Christina Battle, William “Billy” Beal, Anna Binta Diallo, Cheryl Foggo, Judah Iyunade, Richard Allan Thomas, Chukwudubem Ukaigwe, NASRA, Frank B. Jamerson fonds.

Curated by Alyssa Camille Fearon

BLACK PRAIRIES honors more than one hundred years of Black/African-Canadian cultural production in the Prairies, spanning the 1920s to the present, with a focus on lens-based media. The exhibition includes newly commissioned contemporary artwork, original glass plate negatives by early 1900s Black Manitoban photographer William “Billy” Beal, and archival photographs from the City of Edmonton’s Frank B. Jamerson fonds.

Beal’s glass plate negatives, taken between 1915 and 1925, document homesteading life in western Manitoba from the perspective of a lone Black man living in an all-white rural township during the early 20th century. Meanwhile, the photographs in the Frank B. Jamerson fonds, created by unnamed photographers, depict everyday Black life in and around Amber Valley, Alberta—a historic community formed during the Great Black Migration of 1910. This migration saw African-Americans fleeing racial violence in the United States to seek refuge in the Canadian Prairies. The selected photographs in this exhibition capture the first thirty years after the migration, reflecting the experiences of the first generation of Black migrants in the region. The contemporary artists in this exhibition foster important dialogues about personal histories, a changing climate, and collective experiences in the region.

Additionally, the exhibition includes the newly created short film For Caesar by filmmaker Cheryl Foggo. The film features Leander Lane, the great-grandson of Julius Caesar Lane, a founding member of the Shiloh People, the historic African-Canadian community in Saskatchewan.

BLACK PRAIRIES provides space for communal grounding and reflection on the ongoing and ever-expanding continuum of Black life and Black cultural production in the Prairies.

Image: Plate 42: William S.A. Beal, self-portrait, Big Woody district, Swan River, Manitoba. c. 1918. (William S.A. Beal/Image courtesy of R. Barrow)

Artist: Ekow Nimako
Curated by Alyssa Fearon

Building Black Civilizations: Journey of 2,000 Ships continues artist Ekow Nimako’s afrofuturistic reimagining of ancient African kingdoms. Using LEGO® bricks as his medium, Nimako explores the mysterious 14th century sea voyage of the predecessor of Mansa Musa, ruler of the Mali Empire. According to legends, Abu Bakr II was an intrepid explorer, abdicated his throne and took 2,000 ships on an expedition into the Atlantic, but was never to return or heard from again. Some accounts suggest the massive fleet reached as far as the Americas, but where they went beyond this is still unknown.  

Combining architecture, historical accounts, and fantastical possibilities, Nimako transcends the geometric form of LEGO® to recreate the epic voyage. And in doing so, he presents an uninterrupted and uncoopted narrative of Black civilizations and imagines liberated futures. 

October 1, 2022 to January 10, 2023 at Dunlop Art Gallery

Installation photo by Don Hall.

Gage’gajiiwaan (Water flowing eternally brings people together), a solo exhibition by Cree-Ojibway artist KC Adams, reflects on the relationships between ancestral knowledge, memory and the sacredness of water. Using a variety of media, including copper, pottery and “birch bark technology,” the exhibition is a visual reminder of the knowledge bundles (traditional teachings) that are passed onto the next generation of life givers and water protectors. Mazes of digital circuit boards along swaths of birch bark reveal the dynamic relationship between nature and technology; copper and clay pottery, created using ancestral methods, reflect traditions of caring for water. The exhibition asks: How can traditional ways of being in relation with water guide relationships to water in the future? Can ancestral knowledge systems inform new technologies of caring for water in Indigenous communities? In the context of limited access to safe drinking water in too many First Nations communities, calling attention to the inherent sacredness of water is critically important. In this exhibition, KC Adams shares her ongoing personal endeavor to recall lasting pathways of blood memory and transmit knowledge of traditional relationships with water for future generations.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the exhibition and related programming were presented online.

Visit the exhibition website.

Image by KC Adams

This Too Shall Pass is a series of textured and abstract paintings on canvas by multimedia artist, mental health and ageism advocate, Gloria C. Swain. Swain’s canvases embody her experiences as an aging Black woman moving through hostile spaces, particularly mental healthcare institutions; and the labour involved with “cutting through and getting cut by” the system. The geometric patterns in Swain’s work illustrate the range of movement associated with the process—sharp edges colliding, shattering and realigning— and allude to the ways that oppressed groups might eventually break through. The project offers space to reflect on the hope, perseverance, and unapologetic reclaiming of place as Swain, a mother, grandmother, community leader, elder and artist, strives to be seen and heard.

The exhibition was paired with Flags of Unsung Countries (originating at the Dunlop Art Gallery) by Liz Ikiriko.

In spring 2019, two Brandon-based artists were selected to participate in the Public Art Mentorship Program– an initiative that fosters artistic leadership in local Indigenous artists living in Brandon. Reflecting on water rights, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, and the continuous Indigenous presence in the region, the two artists created new work to share their unique perspectives.

Images:

Top image: Jessie Jannuska, Nibi – my cup is full, please take a sip, 2019. Digital art.

Bottom image: Carly Morrisseau, nitayānān kīyāpic ōta (We’re Still Here), 2019. Digital art.

The program was generously supported by the RBC Emerging Artist Project.

I was invited to guest-curate the Doris McCarthy Gallery’s 2019 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival exhibition. The featured artists were Bishara Elmi (Toronto, ON) and Luther Konadu (Winnipeg, MB).

A Kind of Return brings together projects by Bishara Elmi and Luther Konadu that offer nuanced reflections on interpersonal relationships within Black communities. Konadu is an emerging Winnipeg-based photographer who takes self-portraits and photographs of close friends and loved ones. The resulting images present the subjects on their own terms, and challenge dehumanizing representations that have long been associated with the Black body in photography. Elmi is a Toronto-based artist who addresses the tension between displacement and belonging within relationships, particularly as it relates to the Black queer and trans experience. Using fabric, text, and moving and still images, Elmi’s work argues that the experiences of exile and marginalization can occur within the context of a relationship, not just from a physical location.

Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid

The artists in STYLL disrupt boundaries and blur borders between downtown and the suburbs, the centre and margins, ourselves and each other. Each project exposes the unexpected and unplanned, making real again what was denied or written over.

Scarborough is a community of primarily working-class immigrants, Indigenous communities and first-generation Canadians. These historically underresourced, and often ignored, communities have used their collective action to influence the creativity of this place. STYLL illuminates the artistic production that has always existed, and continues to thrive, in Scarborough. Artists riff on suburban landscapes—strip malls, lush parks, ravines and postwar housing—to pose questions of our collective existence: What do we take with us and what do we leave behind when we go to a new place? How do we create borders, both real and imagined? Who gets to create them?

Each project in STYLL was made by artists from Scarborough or in collaboration with members of Scarborough communities. Forest soundscapes, monuments to honour this community, live performances and light-based projections will engage people of Scarborough, this city’s creatives and beyond.

Lead image: Hiba Abdallah, Everything I Wanted to Tell You, 2018. Photo by Anthony Gebrehiwot.

The 2018 edition of the Young Creatives youth artist residency program focuses on the artistic mediums of cartooning and illustration, photography, and spoken word. The program will take place at the Scarborough Museum.

Organized and curated for the 2017 Myseum Intersections Festival at Scarborough Arts’ Bluffs Gallery, No Vacancy explored the evolving use of the Kingston Road motel-strip in Scarborough. Once known as Canada's Gateway to Toronto, the area was a popular rest stop in the 1950s for travellers and commuters. Many of the motels now serve various uses and functions including temporary housing for people seeking refuge in Canada, overflow for the City’s shelter system, rooms for sex workers servicing their clients, and occasionally, still some travellers looking for a place to rest overnight. However, due to the transient nature of its guests, the motels hide as much as they reveal about what happens there.

The artists in No Vacancy prompt us to ask critical questions about our society and the way it treats those dealing with migration and displacement: How can we re-imagine Scarborough’s neglected areas to better serve those that use them? What does it mean to seek refuge while navigating a complex social system? The exhibition space at the Scarborough Arts’ Bluffs Gallery on Kingston Road along the motel-strip allowed for further reflection on the transformation of the urban environment in which the motels are located.

The exhibition featured works by Sandra Brewster, Nadijah Robinson and Curtia Wright, paired with a series of archival photographs of Scarborough.

Young Creatives and Doris McCarthy Gallery (University of Toronto)

The 2016 edition of the Young Creatives youth artist residency program focuses on the artistic mediums of photography and filmmaking. Artist mentors are Thembani Mdluli and Anique Jordan. This edition of the program was a collaboration between the Young Creatives artist residency and the Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto Scarborough Campus.

I served as lead programmer for this project, which involved conceptualizing and developing the framework and theme of the residency program and selecting mentor artists.

The young artists-in-residence produced a film entitled “Code Justice: The Dynamic Mission.”

Young Creatives and East Scarborough Storefront

The 2015 edition of the Young Creatives youth artist residency program focuses on filmmaking and using professional film equipment provided by Charles Street Video. Artist mentor is Thembani Mdluli. This edition of the program was a collaboration between the Young Creatives artist residency and the East Scarborough Storefront.

I served as lead programmer for this project, which involved conceptualizing and developing the framework and theme of the residency program and selecting mentor artists.

The young artists-in-residence produced a film entitled “The Way Out.”

Image Credit: Still image of "The Way Out" film.

Cultural Heritage research at Scarborough Museum

As part of a Toronto Arts Council exploratory research grant, I explored the history of the area around the Scarborough Museum. I also conceptualized and developed a pilot version of the Young Creatives youth artist residency program, in collaboration with Eastview Public School and artist Liz Mandoka.