Holding Space
Monday September 21, 2020 – Saturday November 28, 2020
Presented live in London Ontario and across various platforms online
In an interview for “Nina Simone Great Performances: College Concerts and Interviews” the singer and activist states: “An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.” Under current circumstances, this is quite a charge. It is the London Ontario Media Arts Association’s belief that this responsibility should not simply fall on the shoulders of artists. Arts organizations are complicit and should share this duty through the provision of space and funds to vanguard creators who continue to communicate their unique perspectives, histories, and narratives.
This fall, LOMAA will highlight Black Canadian artists in a social media series titled Holding Space. Aimed at uplifting these media practitioners, this program will champion the artistic pursuits and ensure the primacy of minoritarian makers. Designed for online dissemination and digital audiences, LOMAA will feature 10 media artists, ranging from emerging to established, from across Canada who embody Nina Simone’s further statements: “…we will shape and mold this country.” Through Holding Space, LOMAA hopes to counter pervasive and continued systemic racism, a task that is vital in shaping the future of Canadian arts.
Quentin VerCetty is an award-winning international multidisciplinary visual storyteller, arts educator, artivist, and an ever-growing interstellar planet. His scholarly work explores Afrofuturism as a teaching tool and has coined the terms Sankofanology and Rastafuturism. Artistically, his work explores the social implications of African monuments as technofossils for the future and imagineering safe spaces for Black people and culture to exist. VerCetty’s work has been exhibited globally and has been featured in numerous publications. VerCetty is also one of the founding leaders of the Black Speculative Arts Movement and launched the Canadian chapter in 2016. He is also the co-editor of the first Canadian Afrofuturism art book entitled Cosmic Underground Northside: An Incantation of Black Canadian Speculative Discourse and Innerstandings to be re-released in the winter of 2020 after selling out everywhere.
Sylvia D. Hamilton
The Passage: Waters of the Diaspora
Sylvia D. Hamilton is a Nova Scotian filmmaker and writer who is known for her award-winning documentary films as well as her publications, public presentations and extensive volunteer work with artistic, social and cultural organizations on the local and national levels. Her films include Black Mother Black Daughter, Speak It! From the Heart of Black Nova Scotia and the Portia White: Think On Me, a documentary about Canadian contralto Portia White and The Little Black School House, an exploration of Canada’s segregated schools. Her films have screened in festivals in Canada and abroad, and shown on CBC Television, BRAVO, VISION, TVO and The Knowledge Network. They are in wide use in schools and universities across Canada. She was a contributor to and co-editor of We’re Rooted Here and They Can’t Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women’s History, the first collection of its kind published in Canada. Her poetry and essays have been published in a variety of Canadian publications. Her poetry collection, And I Alone Escaped to Tell You, was published by Gaspereau Press in 2014, and in 2015 was short-listed for the League of Canadian Poets’ Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the East Coast Literary’s JM Abraham Poetry Award. Sylvia is the owner of Maroon Films Inc.
Jenelle Rouse is a Black Deaf contemporary visual body-movement artist. She explores and experiments with different mediums to share stories without any reliance on words. In addition to her other career as a bilingual (American Sign Language and English) educator with a PhD in Applied Linguistics (Education), Rouse has been involved in a variety of Ontario arts-related sectors (e.g., Tangled Arts, Centre[3], VibraFusionLab, Canadian Cultural Society of the Deaf’s Deaf Culture Centre, Bodies in Translation, and more), including overseeing her project, Multi-Lens. Since 2010, she has performed various shows such as Talking Movement; Withered Tree; Perceptions II; Home: Body; Crossings; Hear, Feel, See, What! and Proud.
Christina Battle’s (Edmonton) artistic practice and research imagine how disaster could be utilized as a tactic for social change and as a tool for reimagining how dominant systems might radically shift.
Aaron Jones is a multi-disciplinary visual artist based in Toronto. His practice surrounds ideas of self-reflection and character-building as a way of finding peace. Often using found images, videos and lens-based media, he works with different forms of collage to build characters and spaces that reflect upon the complexities and nuances of his own upbringing. Recent exhibitions include Propped at Oakville Galleries (2017), Under Mine presented by the BAU Collective at 187 Gallery (2017), Ragga NYC at Mercer Union (2018), Bending Towards the Sun at YYZ Outlet (2019) and From the Ground Up at NIA Centre for the Arts (2019). Upcoming exhibitions include Three-Thirty at Doris McCarthy Gallery for the 2020 CONTACT Photography Festival and a solo exhibition at UGLY Gallery in Chicago, Illinois. He graduated with a B. from OCADU in 2018 and is an active member of the BAU Collective. His work is included in the collections of Ryerson Image Centre and Wedge Curatorial Projects.
Jessica Karuhanga is a Canadian Ugandan-British artist whose work addresses issues of cultural politics of identity and Black Diasporic concerns through lens-based technologies, writing, drawing and performances. Through her practice she explores individual and collective concerns of Black subjectivity – illness, rage, grief, desire and longing within the context of Black embodiment. She has presented her work at The Bentway, Toronto, (2019), Nuit Blanche, Toronto (2018), Onsite Gallery, Toronto (2018), Museum London, London, UK (2018), and Goldsmiths, London, UK (2017). Her writing has been published by C Magazine, Susan Hobbs Gallery and Fonderie Darling. She has been featured in AGO’s Artist Spotlight, i-D, DAZED, Visual Aids, Border Crossings, Toronto Star, CBC Arts, filthy dreams, Globe and Mail, and Canadian Art. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Western University, London, ON and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Victoria, Victoria, BC. She lives and works in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Abdi Osman is a Somali-Canadian multidisciplinary artist whose work focuses on questions of black masculinity as it intersects with Muslim and queer identities. Osman’s video and photography work has been shown in Canada and internationally in both group and solo exhibitions.
Osman holds an MFA in Documentary Media from Ryerson University, and a B.A. in African Studies from the University of Toronto. Solo exhibitions of his work have been organized at the Art Museum, Toronto, ON (2019); The Gardener Museum, Toronto, ON (2019); Photopolis, Halifax, NS (2017); McColl Centre for Visual Arts, Charlotte, NC (2010); Richmix Gallery, London, UK (2017); Gordon Snelgrove Gallery, Saskatoon, SK (2012). Select group exhibitions include London Ontario Media Arts Association, London, ON (2020); Mythological Migrations: The Darkroom; Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland; Contact Landing(s), Thames Art Gallery, Chatham, ON (2018); I believe in Living, Untitled Art Society, Calgary, AB (2018); Future Africa: Visions in Time, The National Museum of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya (2017), Goethe Institute, Johannesburg, South Africa (2017); Canadian Belonging(s), The Art Gallery of Mississauga, Mississauga, ON (2016); Future Africa: Visions in Time, Iwalewahaus The Centre for African Contemporary Art and Culture, Bayreuth, Germany (2015); and IMA Gallery, Toronto, ON (2012). Osman’s work is in numerous public and private collections, including The University of Toronto, Toronto; The Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa; Vtape, Toronto; and the 519 LGBT Community Centre, Toronto.
Osman has received numerous grants and fellowships, including the Ontario Arts Council Grant (2019); Gardiner Museum-funded Community Arts Project (2019); and Charlotte Lesbian and Gay Fund to McColl Center for Visual Arts for the Community Outreach Project (2010). Fellowships include: The Mark Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity, University of Toronto (2019-2023); Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies, University of Bayreuth (2015); United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), Cardiff, Wales (2014); and Community-Based Intellectuals/Activists/Artists Residency, University of Saskatchewan (2012).
Ronnie Clarke is a Black, queer and Canadian emerging artist living and working in Toronto, Ontario. Her work blends elements of choreography, dance, movement, collaboration, video and installation. She is interested in how language manifests, becomes translated and is mediated in the digital age. With an interest in the poetics of digital gestures, spaces, and interfaces, she often uses movement to investigate how technology plays a role in our interactions with others. She holds a BFA from the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario.
Clarke has performed and exhibited professionally at a number galleries and performance venues such as Forest City Gallery (London), Artlab Gallery (London), Trinity Square Video (Toronto), and Xpace Cultural Centre (Toronto). Recent projects include a commissioned online performance for Artcite Inc. (Windsor, 2020) and an online residency at the 7th Annual Roundtable Residency (Toronto, 2019).
Madelyne Beckles is a multidisciplinary artist from Toronto. She holds a BFA in Art History and Women’s Studies and now puts her critical faculties to work as a co-host of the podcast High T. Her artwork, which has been shown at MoMA, the AGO, and Miami Art Basel, explores themes of femininity and the body with abject aesthetics and camp humour. She is currently the Curatorial Assistant of Youth and Engagement at the AGO.
Beckles has been collaborating with Delilah Rosier as ‘Masking Collective’ since their debut exhibition Masking is Always More Fun with a Friend in 2015. Masking Collective’s artistic objectives are to create interdisciplinary, immersive environments by incorporating a combination of readymades, collaborations and independently created artworks. Theory heavily informs their practice as they continue to generate works that critique the art and pop historical cannon through an intersectional feminist lens.