Little girl in coat looking at photo: Sandra Brewster. Feeding Trafalgar Square, 2021 — Sandra Brewster. Feeding Trafalgar Square, 2021.
Photo: Aaron Clarke

As someone who has considered the AGO a second home since high school, exiting the elevator into the ambience that is Fragments of Epic Memory will forever leave me emotionally charged. I’ve considered this gallery space to be a second home, but it’s never actually felt like MY home until this specific exhibit. Modern and contemporary works by artists ranging from Ebony Patterson and Nadia Huggins to Kelly Sinnapah Mary make up this exhibit, right alongside a collection of over 200 photographs from the AGO’s honourary Montgomery Collection of Caribbean Photographs.

I had the pleasure of unpacking this showcase via conversation with Julie Crooks, a renowned curator who was recently named head of the new AGO department, Arts of Global Africa & the Diaspora. Julie’s experienced eye knew which artists should participate in this monumental dialogue, and she chose the ones who would act as a counterpoint to the post-colonial photographs from The Collection. “The artists that I selected are all thinking about those moments. They’re kind of entangled in that history, but they are also reclaiming some of those themes, those histories in their own ways and using their own various mediums to express a kind of reclamation or pushing against. . . . I knew that there has been a vibrant art-making scene both in the Caribbean and its diasporas, and I wanted to reflect that in the artists that I selected.” Julie went on to add that she was very interested in a transnational perspective and wanted to showcase artists of Caribbean descent who were living in a wider diaspora. “So an artist who is half Trinidadian, half Danish, and is living in Denmark––that really broadens and expands the perspective.”

We delved into the AGO’s acquisitions committee, Friends of Global African Diaspora, which is attached to the new aforementioned department, Arts of Global Africa & the Diaspora. Julie led me through her work practices with her support team and the ways in which they uplift her visions for acquiring artwork, from group discussions to raising funds in order to purchase artwork which in turn builds up the larger AGO collection to accurately reflect its Toronto communities. “It’s actually quite extraordinary because the majority of them are Black women from the Caribbean, so it was really important for this group to be really, again, reflective of the communities. . . But I think the common denominator is their interest and passion for art and also to really highlight the work of artists working on the African continent globally, as well as its various diasporas, so I’m very pleased to have this group supporting me.”

We went on to discuss the intersection of race, identity and cultural representation, among other common themes this exhibit explores––themes that are always intersecting due to the centuries-long period of enslavement, as well as the remnants leftover from colonialism and the ways in which that narrative continues today. When we study the Black experience, we clearly see the complexities of these themes, how they are so interconnected and how our lived experiences are reflected in this exhibit. “It’s not an encyclopedic show . . . it isn’t meant to be definitive. It’s meant to continue a conversation.” Julie zooms into the racial dynamics that evolved in the Caribbean over time due to people from other regions such as India bringing their own culture, religion, lifestyle and spiritual practices to meet a new society; “that reflects another moment in Caribbean history.” We explore artists like Nadine Huggins and Ebony Patterson, who are defining racial class but also combing through ideas around masculinity and queer culture in a place like Jamaica. In order to gain clarity around this conversation, we must hear from all walks of life with nuanced perspectives on the Caribbean and African diasporas, and Julie single-handedly accomplishes this by inviting artists who don’t just highlight the struggle pieces of our history but pull viewers into the magical world of the Black experience. Themes of wonder and play elaborate on a complete story in this exhibit, with our humanity as the backdrop.

One piece that sharply stood out to me was Peter Dean Rickards’ digital media piece, Proverbs 24:10. Adolescent, Jamaican boys are moving to dancehall in slow motion, with an instrumental playing in the background from a whole different musical genre other than dancehall. I’ll never forget the emotions churning in my chest as I watched Rickards’ vision play out through a large projector. Upon sharing this memory with Julie, she expounded, “Peter Dean Rickards is doing exactly what I’m talking about: forcing you to see those boys in a completely different way. You expect a kind of thumping, dancehall vibe going on, you expect it to be in colour, you expect it to be in real time and not slowed down. And he’s really forcing you to see these young boys in a completely different light. And of course, the Proverb is, ‘If you falter in times of trouble, how small is your strength?’ So there’s a resolve to continue despite the struggle to just be.” Rickards challenges us to come to terms with not only our own resilience but with the level of acceptance it takes to understand each others’ journeys, no matter the hardships.

Whether by way of abstract art, figurative art, photography or even conceptual art, contemporary artists today are continuing their exploration of key themes, ideas and histories, and they continue to respond creatively to the ongoing conditions of the Caribbean and African diasporas in their own, individualized ways within the scope of Black, transnational artwork. “I want viewers who are not familiar with the Caribbean to really expand their notion of what the Caribbean is––that it’s not just this exotic or tropical paradise, that the histories are deeper––and to really see the Caribbean in this exhibition from a different perspective, from which they might already hold. So, to move out of the kind of narrow stereotypical notion of the Caribbean. I want them to explore or become familiar with a kind of trajectory of art-making practices––that it’s not a new phenomenon, that there have been artists in the Caribbean working alongside their counterparts in the West. I think that’s really important.” I learned that there is a kind of visceral, emotional response from the public towards many of the pieces in this exhibit. It’s a conversation about continuing histories and experiences, the majority of which center around working the land and how we made it our own and kept our own agency despite the obstacles. “It’s about continuous labour and, within all of that, how we find joy, performance like Carnival, how we resist. I think that’s also very important––that it wasn’t always about a kind of passive experience or intake, but that there were always moments of active resistance. . . . So I think that all of those elements are all of the fragments that make up this history, and this is one moment that we get to experience all of those fragments in a whole way.”

Fragments of Epic Memory is currently live at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) until February 21st, 2022.

Julie Crooks Shines a Spotlight on African Diaspora & Caribbean’s Rich History via AGO Exhibition: Fragments of Epic Memory

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