From Edmonton's poet laureate, a cinematic tribute to the Black families who've built a life on the Prairies.
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Hi, Art!

Sunday, January 30, 2022

Hi, Art!

Sunday, January 30, 2022

Hi, art lovers!

 

To introduce this week’s newsletter, I’m turning things over to CBC’s Lucius Dechausay. Begin transmission!

Of all the things lost in the pandemic, the thing I miss the most right now is travelling. So when I received a message from CBC’s Black on the Prairies team asking whether I’d be interested in producing a video in Edmonton with the epically talented Titilope Sonuga, I might have eagerly raised my virtual hand faster and higher than ever thought possible.

The final piece, entitled Arrival, is a poetic celebration of the gifts, talents, history and legacy that immigrants bravely carry with them like luggage as they forge a new path in an unfamiliar, and at times hostile, environment. It honours Sonuga’s journey to Canada, my own family’s arrival in the 1970s — and marks the legacy of Black pioneers who made the Prairies their home.

In 1998, when a young Sonuga arrived in Edmonton with her Nigerian family, the weather was harsh. It was “the coldest day of my life,” she jokes. All these years after her family first touched down, she is a celebrated artist, award-winning author, mother of two beautiful children, and the poet laureate of Edmonton. This video is an empowering reflection on that first experience in Canada.

Filmed in November, alongside the North Saskatchewan River, the project was halted a few times, and due to rising COVID numbers in Alberta, I was ultimately unable to fly there to shoot in person. But on a snowy –12 C day, I was able to work with local filmmakers Asim Overstands and Vince Raquel to remotely see this journey through. —Lucius Dechausay, senior video producer


The video went live last week. Find it on the Black on the Prairies: Place Edition website, and while you’re there, make sure to explore the rest of this new interactive project. 

And because we promised you eye candy ...

 
Cartoon illustration of three Black men driving an orange car on an empty icy road. An enormous thought bubble emerges above the card. Depicted inside is a bowl of hot stew.

Ben Shannon

On the subject of Black on the Prairies, what would you do for a taste of home? Would you drive all the way to a farm in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta. — in the middle of a snowstorm? Don’t answer that. Just read this story by Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike featuring illustrations by Ben Shannon.

 
Two works by Firelei Baez installed on a light grey wall. Both are in arched frames and appear to be human silhouettes that explode beyond their frames in bursts of vibrant colour: yellow, orange, lilac, green.

Firelei Báez

Meanwhile in Toronto, things are beginning to open up again. The AGO’s back in operation as of Feb. 1, and you’ll find these works by Firelei Báez inside the exhibition Fragments of Epic Memory. 
 
Sculptural work by Eddy Firmin installed against a white wall. The form is in the shape of a punching bag. A human face appears to protrude from the front of the bag in 3D. The face winces with its eyes closed, as if crying. Instead of tears, painted blue roses, like those that might decorate fine china, appear on its cheeks.

@eddy.firmin/Instagram

And if you can’t wait that long to experience art in the great indoors, the Gardiner Museum will be reopening even earlier. They’re set to welcome visitors back as of Jan. 31. Eddy Firmin is one of the artists they have in their collection, but this particular work was photographed at the Maison de la culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce in Montreal.
 
A female figure wearing a mask appears in sihadow, standing in an expansive room that's filled with interwoven red laser beams.

Intangible Forms

You had me at lasers. Here’s a peek at Intangible Forms, a “kinetic laser performance and installation” created by Shohei Fujimoto. It’s appearing in Montreal to April 12.
 
 

You've got to see this

 
 
 
Eight multi-generational members of a Black family pose for a portrait outdoors on a snowy day at tjhe site of Edmonton's Walterdale Bridge.
CBC Arts

Watch Arrival!

 
Here it is — a cinematic tribute to the Black communities who’ve built a life on the Prairies.
 
A white man wearing a winter parka and a polka dot bike helmet pilots a wooden sled down a snowy hill.
The Hibernation Project

These artists can teach you a lot about beating the winter blahs

 
Bored? Restless? This Calgary duo discovered how to get the most out of the dreariest time of year.
 
Zackary Drucker in Framing Agnes. Shot in close-up, Zackary wears coral lipstick and heavy pink blush, cat-eye sunglasses and a pastel headscarf.

Sundance Film Festival/Ava Benjamin Shorr

 

One of the best queer films at Sundance

 
Framing Agnes interrogates how trans stories are told, and by whom.
 

Follow this artist

 
 
 
Instagram

Caitlind r.c. Brown and Wayne Garrett

@incandescentcloud
Photo of a light installation at night. It is in the shape of a tree, or a cumulus cloud, depending on how you look at it. The

@incandescentcloud/Instagram

I spoke to the Calgary-based duo last week for this article about the Hibernation Project. It’s a sort of “art marathon” they do every year, a project that helps charge their creative batteries so they can keep on making electrifying works like this one. (This is Cloud, by the way. It’s been travelling the world since Caitlind and Wayne created it in 2012.)
 

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I’m Leah Collins, senior writer at CBC Arts. Until next time!

 
XOXO CBC Arts
XOXO CBC Arts
 
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