How does the past inform our future? Within the prism of Afrofuturism, the future pays homage to the past, and the present bears witness to the future.
About the event
When reimagining the future, Black and Indigenous peoples, cultures, identities and artistic practices are not often reflected to their fullest potential.
Hart House Black Futures Series invites you to join us at the crossroads of art, culture and community to hear how Black and Indigenous artists are grappling with their place, culture and identity in a future that is yet to exist.
A repository of stories, knowledge, counter narratives converge as Ekow Nimako (Lego Art & Sculpturist, Farhiya Jama (Afrofuturist Visual Artist) , and Skawennati (Multimedia Artist) along with co-moderators Dr. Karyn Recollet (Professor, Women and Gender Studies, UofT) and Dr. Audrey Hudson (Associate Curator of School & Early Childhood programs at the Art Gallery of Ontario and teaches at Ryerson and UofT) discusses concepts related to Black and Indigenous peoples ally-ship, shared future, artistic practice and justice seeking solidarities.
We will open our evening with spoken word performance by artist Mahlikah Aweri.
All are welcome to this free event. Light refreshments will be served!
Source of Visual art used in this communication by Farhiya Jama @hausofriya
Stories are our light, in these dark times. So, I am here to Speak Light. Speak Life. Speak Love. Revive our Mother Tongues. Speak Words into Existence. Keep our Stories Alive. Say Our Names. Listen in our Languages. Reimagine in our Languages. As an Onkwehonwe, once I know, I always remember. Our Stories Matter because We Are Still Here.
Mahlikah Awe:ri
Guest Speakers
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Ekow Nimako
Lego Art & Sculpturist
Ekow Nimako has been making art with LEGO® his entire life. It began when he was four and later took root in the sculpture studios of York University, evolving over the years into a fascinating contemporary art practice unlike any other. Along with his uniquely fluid building style, keen attention to form, and content deeply rooted in other-worldly Black narratives, Nimako’s artwork beautifully transcends the iconic LEGO® bricks to reach new heights of materiality and substance. His 2018 equestrian artwork Cavalier Noir was conceptualized with visionary artist Director X and featured a young Black warrior astride a dauntless black unicorn. The seven foot monument challenged colonial perceptions of identity and heroism and gained national interest as one of the most impactful exhibits of Nuit Blanche. In the fall of 2019, the haunting installation To Feed the Village the Young Must Grow from Nimako's Building Black: Mythos series premiered at the Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art Biennale in Berlin, followed by the international group exhibition Brick by Brick, which launches its 2019 - 2022 tour at 20-21 Visual Arts Centre in the United Kingdom. Nimako’s medieval Africa inspired series Building Black: Civilizations, which opened at the Aga Khan Museum in Sept 2019, explores the untold narratives of sub-Saharan Africa during the middle ages, with detailed references to architecture, Islam, and Afrofuturism. Ekow lives and works in Toronto, Canada.
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Farhiya Jama
Afrofuturist Visual Artist
Toronto based Somali-Canadian visual artist. Her visual works explore positive affirmation for young black girls of diasporic identity, and is grounded on the belief representation is not something to wait for but to create. Her work has been featured locally and internationally. From Daniel’s Spectrum in Toronto to the Afrofuturism Conference in New York to the "a human world map" exhibit in both Larissa and Athens in Greece. Using original photography and sourced images, Jama conjures elaborate alternate worlds where Black women and girls star in extraordinary narratives complete with intricate backstories of how they came to be. Jama first fell in love with the genres of fantasy and science fiction as a child but was disappointed by the dismal representation of Black people in the stories she read. That was when she decided to write the kind of stories she wanted to read, with characters she needed to see as a young Black girl. These imaginary worlds are her escape from the harsh realities of being Black and Muslim in Canada, as well as a visual love letter to Black girls who share her hunger to be seen.
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Skawennati
Multimedia Artist
Skawennati makes art that addresses history, the future, and change. Her pioneering new media projects include the online gallery/chat-space and mixed-reality event, CyberPowWow (1997-2004); a paper doll/time-travel journal, Imagining Indians in the 25th Century (2001); and TimeTraveller™ (2008-2013), a multi-platform project featuring nine machinima episodes. These have been widely presented across North America in major exhibitions such as "Now? Now!" at the Biennale of the Americas; and "Looking Forward (L’Avenir)" at the Montreal Biennale. She has been honored to win imagineNative’s 2009 Best New Media Award as well as a 2011 Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship. Her work in is included in both public and private collections.
Born in Kahnawake Mohawk Territory, Skawennati holds a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal, where she is based. She is Co-Director, with Jason E. Lewis, of Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC), a research network of artists, academics and technologists investigating, creating and critiquing Indigenous virtual environments. She also co-directs their workshops in Aboriginal Storytelling and Digital Media. Skins, This year, AbTeC launched IIF, the Initiative for Indigenous Futures; Skawennati is its Partnership Coordinator.
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Mahlikah Awe:ri
Arts Educator, Poet, and Performance Artist
Haudenosaunee Kanien’kéhà:ka & Mi’kmaw L’sitkuk, Canadian Poet Of Honor, Mahlikah Awe:ri is an Afro-Indigenous Artist For Social Change, “Shifting paradigms through Indigenized ways of knowing and being; while reimagining what it means to be “In-Relation”, to the Land and to each other”.
Awe:ri is a nationally recognized Spoken Word Artist, Arts Educator, Land Defender & Water Protector, Public Speaker, Performance Artist, Curator and Afro-Indigenous Futurist Writer, who was awarded the 2019-2020 Paula Fund for the development of new works for younger audiences for her acclaimed solo work Tionnhéhkwen Tionnká:non (Our Sustenance Our Medicines).
Mahlikah is currently based in Sewatokwa'tshera't Wampum
Tsi Tkarón:to, Oniatarí:io, Kanata, as the acting Deputy Director of Programming for Neighbourhood Impact at the Centre of Learning & Development in Regent Park, Founding member of Red Slam, an Indigenous Art 4 Social Change Movement, Prologue To The Performing Arts Provincial School Touring Artist, and an Indigenous Art Educator for the The Art Gallery Of Ontario.
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Co-Moderators
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Dr. Karyn Recollet
Professor, Women and Gender Studies, U of T
Karyn Recollet is an Assistant professor in the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. Karyn is an urban Cree, residing in the traditional territories of the Petun, Wendat, Mississauga’s of the New Credit, Dish with One Spoon treaty territory. Karyn’s research explores the various intersections of Indigenous artistic activations rooted in the multiple layered Indigenous territories that are urban spaces. Karyn’s focal points are choreographic fugitivity, Indigenous futurities, and decolonial love. Karyn’s publications include articles Glyphing Decolonial love, Gesturing Indigenous futurities, and has coedited alongside Eve Tuck, Native Feminist Texts (a special edition of English Journal). Karyn is currently working on a manuscript entitled Urban glyphs: fugitivities, futurities, and radical decolonial love.
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Dr. Audrey Hudson
Chief, Education & Programming at Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and teaches Black Canadian Studies at U of T
Audrey Hudson is an artist, educator, researcher and futurist. Audrey is on the leadership team at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), where she is the Richard & Elizabeth Currie Chief, Education & Programming and teaches Black Canadian Studies at University of Toronto.
She holds a PhD from University of Toronto/Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (UT/OISE). Most recently, Dr. Hudson co-edited a ground breaking text entitled, In This Together: Blackness, Indigeneity and Hip-Hop, with a chapter, entitled, All eyes on Hip Hop: Afrofuturism and Indigenous Futurities.
Other chapters and articles include: Where We @?: Blackness, Indigeneity and Hip-Hop’s Expression of Creative Resistance (co-authored) (2015); Here We Are On Turtle Island: Navigating Places, Spaces and Terrain (2016); Integrating Black Lives into education: Black Lives Matter Freedom School (2019); and Learning From A Young Indigenous Artist: What Can Hip-Hop Teach Us? (2020) and forthcoming co-edited text in Winter 2020 is, Cosmic Underground Northside: An Incantation of Black Canadian Speculative Discourse and Innerstandings.
Credit line: Photography, Craig Boyko @cbdotcom
