SIX AH WI
Projects

Why Now? • Components • Aims & Objectives • The Audience • Our Partners • Planning Committee • Consultant Committee

Why Now?

With the growth of visible minority communities, in particular the African-Canadian and American middle class, the increased exposure of Canadians to peoples and cultures from across the globe and the popularity of arts phenomena like Bollywood and Caribana, it is undeniable, the audience for non-traditional visual arts is rapidly growing.

The SIX AH WI Reflections Exhibition Series, which will show case the best of African-Canadian artists’ concepts, creative ideas and works of art to Canada and the world, is targeted at this growing audience, hungry for new and multicultural artistic experiences.

The SIX AH WI Reflections Exhibition Series however, will do more than exhibit the best Canada has to offer, it will also address a long history of complex, systemic, social, political and cultural conditions that have given rise to the isolation and disconnection of African-Canadian artists from the Canadian artistic mainstream.

Although African-Canadian artists have long been creating noteworthy and provocative works of art, they have been largely marginalized. Limited entrepreneurial opportunity within the visual arts community, the lack of afro-centric cultural studies in universities, little academic artistic discourse about African Canadian art and marginalization by mainstream art institutions, have hidden the contributions of African-Canadian artists to the cultural fabric of Canada.

As a result, contemporary art exhibitions dealing with African-Canadian identity have yet to be featured in a large-scale survey exhibition at any major museum or gallery. Exhibitions dealing with African-Canadian art are exhibited largely within smaller, regional galleries, and in many instances are presented as part of Black History Month activities. 

The SIX AH WI Reflections Exhibition Series will present African Canadian art outside of the confinement of Black History Month, to break the cycle, to create “a coming out,” of African art, unveiling it to the public through the Art Gallery of Ontario and other mainstream galleries at home and abroad.

The creative concepts to be explored will relate to the current dialogue surrounding “The Question of Diaspora and Identity,” and the contribution made during post-colonial and post-modern periods by contemporary African visual artists, including members of the African-Diaspora.

The series will also address issues and themes relevant to African Canadian art and artistic expression within the African Diaspora and will pose many questions. In a world characterized by movement, how does the notion of exile (and Diaspora, nomadism) impact creativity or symbolize freedom, nostalgia and loss in a globalized environment? How do ideas of home, identity, and geography feature in the works of the artists presented? Does the experience of belonging and exile necessarily become a defining element in their work? Where do these works fit within modern and contemporary art history?

Consisting of 4 exhibitions, starting in 2009 and running through to 2012, the overarching objective will be to create a visual artistic testimony to our humanity. 

A multi-arts disciplinary exhibition series, it will include members of the SIX AH WI art collective and other artists from the African Diaspora from different geographic locations, including Africa.

The reflections exhibition series will also include a symposium, awards events, education programming and a national touring component. All four exhibitions will show in Toronto with the exception of the last exhibition, which will include traveling to three provinces across the country.

Why Now? • Components • Aims & Objectives • The Audience • Our Partners • Planning Committee • Consultant Committee

SIX AH WI Reflections Exhibition Series

“A creative journey exploring the complexities of our humanity”