Presented in partnership with the AGO, this year’s event will ground us firmly in the earth as we excavate its metals and materials to examine our close-knit ancestral history of African and Indigenous mythology and meaning-making.
Overview
Four panelists will discuss the role of rock as the common foundation of Afro-Indigenous thought. Examining the significance of this element to African and Indigenous mythology, they will explore the solidarity of these communities and speculate about the future of rock in myth.
Join us as we, in partnership with the AGO, consider past, present and future mythological interpretations of rock, the foundational element. This will be a welcoming space for participants to reflect on the nature of Afro-Indigenous thought.
Panelists
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Quentin VerCetty
Multi-award-winning, multidisciplinary visual griot, artpreneur, educator, artivist, and an ever-growing interstellar tree
Winner of the 2020 Joshua Glover Memorial competition, Quentin VerCetty (Lindsay) is a multi-award-winning, multidisciplinary visual griot, artpreneur, educator, artivist, and an ever-growing interstellar tree. With a Bachelor's in Fine Arts from OCADU University (2017) and a Master's in Art Education from Concordia University (2021), he is one of the world's leading Afrofuturist a/r/tographers. Through his scholarly work, he has coined the terms Sankofanology and Rastafuturism while creatively he exhibits imaginative futures of Blackness representation. VerCetty is the co-editor of Canada’s first Afrofuturism art anthology, Cosmic Underground Northside: An Incantation of Black Canadian Speculative Discourse and Innerstandings (2020), which features works from over 100 Black Canadians. Through his work, he hopes to engage minds, inspire hearts, and help to make the world a better place not only for today but for many tomorrows to come.
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Michael Belmore
Michael Belmore employs a variety of materials and processes that at times may seem disjointed, yet, the reality is that together his work and processes speak about the environment, about land, about water, and what it is to be Anishinaabe. A graduate of the Ontario College of Art & Design, he completed his Masters of Fine Art at the University of Ottawa in 2019. Belmore’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented in the permanent collections of various institutions and numerous private collections. His exhibitions include: Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON, Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art at the Peabody Essex in Salem, MA and HIDE: Skin as Material and Metaphor at the National Museum of the American Indian – George Gustav Heye Centre in New York.
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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
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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.
Partners
Presented in Partnership with the AGO
