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Addressing systemic issues through art — University Affairs – University Affairs

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Concordia professor curates historical exhibition of Black Canadian works.

Joana Joachim was still a student when the idea first came to her for a project highlighting Black Canadian art history. While doing her master’s in museum studies at Université de Montréal, she took part in a group residency at Artexte, an arts organization in downtown Montreal. The students developed a bibliography for Black and Asian Canadian art, in response to how those groups have faced exclusion from historically Eurocentric art institutions.

“I had the distinct feeling that we had only just scratched the surface, and I tucked that in the back of my mind as a thing to revisit someday.” She is now doing just that with Blackity, an exhibition that traces the major moments – and, importantly, gaps – in the story of Black artists in Canada. It launched at Artexte in September and will run until the end of June.

Dr. Joachim, who was recently appointed assistant professor of Black studies at Concordia University in art education, art history, and social justice, said the willingness of Artexte to address systemic issues in the art world was important to the genesis of Blackity. “That set the tone for me as a curator and art historian,” she said.

Items in the Blackity exhibition date back to the 1970s when the archive was more sparse and run up until the past decade, which had plenty to draw from. To physically show the gaps, Dr. Joachim had vertical bands painted on the walls of the exhibition space, their thickness representing how much was available – or widely recognized – at the time. Photo by Paul Litherland.

The exhibit makes thoughtful use of what’s known as ephemera: items created for a specific purpose that weren’t necessarily meant to last, such as a pamphlet or admission ticket. Ephemera is crucial, Dr. Joachim explained, because even with a lack of institutional recognition, it serves as evidence of what took place. Viewers will find things like a poster for a show of Tim Whiten, slides of sculpture art by Stan Douglas, and literary journals with work from Dionne Brand and Sylvia Hamilton.

Items date back to the 1970s, when the archive was more sparse, and run up until the past decade, which had plenty to draw from. To physically show these gaps, Dr. Joachim had vertical bands painted on the walls of the exhibition space, their thickness representing how much was available – or widely recognized – at the time. She chose large letters for some text, in a faint grey shade; symbolizing how Black Canadian artists have always been present and influential, but haven’t always been treated as such.

Dr. Joachim worked closely with Mojeanne Behzadi, who currently works in her previous role at Artexte. Ms. Behzadi brought in artists to paint the grey bands, and commissioned web developer Alex Nawotka of Mutual Design for the online exhibition. What she finds most impactful about Blackity is how it reminds us of the importance in documenting diverse experiences. “This great show you saw that nobody wrote on, it can end up disappearing very easily. I love that [Blackity] asks us to do something in response to that.” She described the exhibition as “a visualized bibliography” of Dr. Joachim’s work, something researchers can actively use and reference.

There are a few pieces that stood out to Dr. Joachim, some for their quirkiness, like the small plastic bull someone catalogued in a plastic bag – proof that you never know what’s going to be important later. But there’s one, a 1993 catalogue with mention of the artist Khadejha McCall, that hit close to the mission behind Blackity. McCall had been exhibiting work since 1967, but Dr. Joachim found just one sentence of critical writing about her in the archive. It’s a stark example of Ms. Behzadi’s sentiment; if meaningful work is not properly engaged with, it can go too long without recognition.

In the exhibition description, Dr. Joachim wrote that she strives to represent the history of Black Canadian art as “a constellation rather than a linear canon.” By letting go of the timeline format, “we end up with these seemingly disparate pockets of art-making, which are connected.” she said. “We end up with something that allows us to understand people and history and the spaces they occupy in a much more textured, nuanced way.”

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40 Random Bits of Trivia About Artists and the Artsy Art That They Articulate – Cracked.com

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40 Random Bits of Trivia About Artists and the Artsy Art That They Articulate  Cracked.com

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John Little, whose paintings showed the raw side of Montreal, dies at 96 – CBC.ca

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John Little, whose paintings showed the raw side of Montreal, dies at 96  CBC.ca

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A misspelled memorial to the Brontë sisters gets its dots back at last

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LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.

More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.

The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.

They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.

“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”

It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.

Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”

Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.

“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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