True North: Unmasking Slavery in Canada Ft. Dr. Charmaine Nelson (ECI Mandela Lecture)
Event Details
This year’s ECI Mandela Lecture explores the long history of Canadian slavery. Using visuals that capture the experiences of enslaved peoples of African descent, this event explores the brutality of slavery and demystifies the current national myth of racial tolerance in Canada. The event will address the need and potential for national curriculum reform, which currently fails to provide a nuanced understanding of slavery in Canada, and to better understand the effects of slavery as they are experienced by Black communities both within and beyond the academy.
When: October 29, 2019 | 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Where:Ryerson University, Library
Speaker bios:
Dr. Charmaine Nelson is Professor of Art History at McGill University. She has made ground-breaking contributions to the fields of the Visual Culture of Slavery, Race and Representation, and Black Canadian Studies. She has published seven books including The Color of Stone: Sculpting the Black Female Subject in Nineteenth-Century America (2007), Slavery, Geography, and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Marine Landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica (2016), and Towards an African Canadian Art History: Art, Memory, and Resistance (2018). She is also actively engaged with lay audiences through her media work including CBC, BBC One, and PBS. She blogs for the Huffington Post Canada and writes for The Walrus. Most recently, she was the William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies at Harvard University (2017-2018).
Natalie Wood wears 3 different kinds of bowties – she is a Professor at GBC, a PhD student and a contemporary multimedia artist who creates work that cohabits the areas of art, popular culture and historical research associated with African presence, spirituality and innovations in the diaspora. Lately she has been exploring the role of creative change-making spaces and escape strategies and fantasies as forms of resistance to racism, homophobia, colonialism and its afterlife. She produces work that includes the use of recyclable materials, drawing and painting, printmaking, video, video performance and installation and web-based art. She has exhibited nationally and internationally in solo and group exhibitions including International Art Fairs & local & international Film Festivals. She has received numerous awards from the Toronto, Ontario and Canada Council for the Arts. Some of her works have been collected by the United Nations.
Camille Turner is an explorer of race, space, home and belonging. Born in Jamaica and currently based in Toronto, her work combines Afrofuturism and historical research. Her interventions, installations and public engagements have been presented throughout Canada and internationally. Camille graduated from Ontario College of Art and Design and York University’s Masters in Environmental Studies program where she is currently a PhD candidate.
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