September 6 – October 5, 2019

Opening Reception: Friday, September 6, 7-11 pm

Taymah Armatrading

Download Essay by Chiedza Pasipanodya

Place of Be(longing) is a video installation aimed at disturbing the hegemonic ideology of Canada as a sanctuary for racialized individuals. This work centers the dialogue of five Black West Indian Canadians invited to the table for a traditional Caribbean meal. Using food, story, and comfort as conduits, the piece evokes shared elements of Caribbean cultural memory. This exhibition creates a site of intervention, where Black experience in the shadow of slavery in Canada is pushed within and beyond frame. At its core this exhibition aims to contextualize these histories, creating an homage to members of the Caribbean diaspora that stands as a way of locating us—so as to say, in the words of award winning novelist and Black activist Dionne Brand, in Essays in African Canadian Women’s History, “we’re rooted here, and they can’t pull us up.”

This exhibition was create during Xpace’s annual summer residency for recent OCAD U graduates.

Documentation by Polina Teif.