Discipline: Visual Arts

The African mask is the face of African art. Displaced and misunderstood, it is a brutalized face through its reluctant association with Western art history, anthropology and art museums. With Opened Mouths reflects on the masks’ presence in an alien context, on alien soil, in alien air. The masks are here not as representatives of who used them or to index what they were used for. Instead, With Opened Mouths attends to the absences surrounding these powerful objects: the absence of people, voices, sound and movement.

The exhibition is a performative engagement with absence and a space to open incipient dialogues between these masks and contemporary art produced by artists residing in Turtle Island, some from the African diaspora. With Opened Mouths speaks the language of refusal, but intonates possibilities for new affinities and new sounds of potential.

Curated by Dr Qanita Lilla

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/with-opened-mouths/

Other Worlds is the third in a series of exhibitions organized by Amy Malbeuf and Jessie Ray Short exploring the work of Métis artists. In this iteration, Amy Malbeuf, Suzanne Morrissette, Tannis Nielsen, Jessie Ray Short and Tiffany Shaw-Collinge ground themselves within and move beyond the earth and solar system to ruminate on outer, inner, and deep space. With a particular focus on the ethereality of science and technology, the artists examine their relationships to unseen forces and concepts of spirit and in/visibility.

Curated by Amy Malbeuf and Jessie Ray Short

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/other-worlds/

Caricature is a powerful art form that uses exaggeration and humour to convey social and political
meaning. Humour Me traces the development of caricature, across several cultures and centuries, as a tool in dismantling power structures. While recognizing that caricature could be harmful in the reinforcement of stereotypes, this exhibition focusses on caricature that turns hierarchy on its head. The juxtaposition of opposites enabled caricaturists to vividly express ideas in rapid fashion. Through caricature, artists satirized politicians, wealthy urbanites, religious authorities and fashion trends, as well as themselves and their colleagues. The show highlights works by a number of the greatest practitioners of this art form, including William Hogarth,
Thomas Rowlandson, Paul Gavarni, Honoré Daumier and Elmer Boyd Smith. It also features self-reflective caricatures by Emily Carr, Pablo Picasso and John Young Johnstone. By bringing together a selection of engaging works on paper from Agnes’s Canadian and European collections, this exhibition offers a stimulating overview of caricature’s toppling history.

Curated by Dr Maxime Valsamas, Curatorial Assistant, European Art

Find out more:
https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/humour-me/

The social and moral implications of retreating oneself in solitude were vigorously debated in early modern Europe. While the benefits of a solitary state were exalted in the context of study and devotional practice, they were also understood to carry a moral obligation of mental fortitude. Theologians warned that time away from family and community could lead to depressive episodes or leave one vulnerable to temptation. Who was advised—or perhaps permitted—solitude, then, was carefully negotiated by cultural and societal norms.

The artworks brought together in this exhibition illustrate how artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Campen, Heyman Dullaert and Cornelis Bisschop confronted the accepted limits of seclusion in their work. Representations of figures solitarily engaged in studies, prayer, or song provided opportunities for an artistic exploration of human interiority and helped inspire ideals of devotion and
erudition. Situated in the context of the 2020–2021 pandemic, Studies in Solitude also considers how such images participated in the development of gendered and class-based conceptions of privileged space that are still felt today.

Curated by Suzanne van de Meerendonk

Studies and Solitude and its related programs are generously supported by the Bader Legacy Fund.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/studies-in-solitude-the-art-of-depicting-seclusion/

Pandemical Loneliness probes the role that the COVID-19 pandemic has played—as it exposes both great harm and hidden
opportunities—in restructuring interpretations and experiences of interior and exterior spaces. By linking atmospheres of distance, despondence, solitude and longing, a collective of curators explores the pandemic’s emotional impact on home life,
public space and daily existence. Situating works from Agnes’s contemporary and historical collections in Etherington House allows the curators to directly reprise and appraise homebound feelings of the pandemic, ranging from loss, to dread, to simple pleasures. The selection of painting, sculpture, photography, video, textile and print includes works by Stephen Andrews, Adrian Blackwell, Edward Burtynsky, Alan Collier, Douglas Coupland, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Drayden DeCosta, Rebecca Diederichs, Betty Goodwin, Alice Henriette, John Lyman, Kelly Mark, Florence McGillivray, David Milne, Kim Ondaatje, Ciara Phillips, Anne Ramsden, Mary Rawlyk, Jon Sasaki, Preston Schiedel and Lisa Visser.

Curated by Baraa Abuzayed, Will Boyle, Drayden DeCosta, Darby Huk, Zakary Jiwa, Elijah Nadler and Bingyu Sheng with Coordinating Curator Sunny Kerr, through Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies 830.

Pandemical Loneliness is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/pandemical-loneliness/

Art Hive @Agnes is online! Join this creative community and make time for yourself to recharge and get inspired! Artmaking is innately therapeutic and Art Hive invites you to experiment and play as you explore the artistic process. If you are looking for more guidance, our art therapist and facilitator is present to support your creative journey by offering inspired thematic projects. Art Hive @Agnes addresses themes of empowerment, wellness and self-care while fostering a safe space and a sense of community. This weekly program is free and projects are designed to use materials you already have on hand. No artistic experience is necessary.

This program is made possible through the generous support of the Birks Family Foundation.

Facilitator Biography:

Harper Johnston, BA, B.Ed, MFA, DTATI has over thirty years of experience working as an arts educator with adults, adolescents and children. She is a professional art therapist, a play therapy intern and is currently completing the requisite hours to become a Registered Psychotherapist. Harper also worked in film for many years as a stills photographer and camera assistant. Her film work, primarily with the C.B.C. and the National Film Board, took her all over the world. Harper has received numerous arts council grants and her photography has been shown across the country. She also has work in the Canada Council’s Art Bank permanent collection. Harper is friendly and enthusiastic and is always happy when called upon to share her creative ideas and studio knowledge.

 Harper has been facilitating Art Hive @Agnes since January 2019.

Desert Perspectives features artwork created by teen artists from our sister city, Scottsdale, Arizona. In turn, the work of teen artists from Kingston, Ontario, have been on display at Scottsdale Public Library: Mustang Branch.

With a Scottsdale reception on July 1st, 2021, Canada Day, the Kingston-to-Scottsdale Teen Art Exchange included a welcome speech by Glenn Williamson, the Honorary Consul of Canada for Arizona, as well as “Walkabout”, an exhibit featuring the photography of sister city coordinator, former Kingston City Councilor, and Photographer Sandy Berg.

As this program invites artists to share their creativity and conversations through art, it also welcomes curiosity and openness to learning about other cultures.

This exhibition is a collaborative effort by the Scottsdale Sister Cities Association, City of Kingston, Kingston Creative Arts Focus Program, Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning, Scottsdale Public Library: Mustang Branch, and Scottsdale Artists’ School.

WHERE: Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning, 3rd floor just outside the Creativity Studios

tettcentre.org/events

Art Hive @Agnes is online! Join this creative community and make time for yourself to recharge and get inspired! Artmaking is innately therapeutic and Art Hive invites you to experiment and play as you explore the artistic process. If you are looking for more guidance, our art therapist and facilitator is present to support your creative journey by offering inspired thematic projects. Art Hive @Agnes addresses themes of empowerment, wellness and self-care while fostering a safe space and a sense of community. This weekly program is free and projects are designed to use materials you already have on hand. No artistic experience is necessary.

This program is made possible through the generous support of the Birks Family Foundation.

Facilitator Biography:

Harper Johnston, BA, B.Ed, MFA, DTATI has over thirty years of experience working as an arts educator with adults, adolescents and children. She is a professional art therapist, a play therapy intern and is currently completing the requisite hours to become a Registered Psychotherapist. Harper also worked in film for many years as a stills photographer and camera assistant. Her film work, primarily with the C.B.C. and the National Film Board, took her all over the world. Harper has received numerous arts council grants and her photography has been shown across the country. She also has work in the Canada Council’s Art Bank permanent collection. Harper is friendly and enthusiastic and is always happy when called upon to share her creative ideas and studio knowledge.

 Harper has been facilitating Art Hive @Agnes since January 2019.

Art Hive @Agnes is online! Join this creative community and make time for yourself to recharge and get inspired! Artmaking is innately therapeutic and Art Hive invites you to experiment and play as you explore the artistic process. If you are looking for more guidance, our art therapist and facilitator is present to support your creative journey by offering inspired thematic projects. Art Hive @Agnes addresses themes of empowerment, wellness and self-care while fostering a safe space and a sense of community. This weekly program is free and projects are designed to use materials you already have on hand. No artistic experience is necessary.

This program is made possible through the generous support of the Birks Family Foundation.

Facilitator Biography:

Harper Johnston, BA, B.Ed, MFA, DTATI has over thirty years of experience working as an arts educator with adults, adolescents and children. She is a professional art therapist, a play therapy intern and is currently completing the requisite hours to become a Registered Psychotherapist. Harper also worked in film for many years as a stills photographer and camera assistant. Her film work, primarily with the C.B.C. and the National Film Board, took her all over the world. Harper has received numerous arts council grants and her photography has been shown across the country. She also has work in the Canada Council’s Art Bank permanent collection. Harper is friendly and enthusiastic and is always happy when called upon to share her creative ideas and studio knowledge.

 Harper has been facilitating Art Hive @Agnes since January 2019.

Art Hive @Agnes is online! Join this creative community and make time for yourself to recharge and get inspired! Artmaking is innately therapeutic and Art Hive invites you to experiment and play as you explore the artistic process. If you are looking for more guidance, our art therapist and facilitator is present to support your creative journey by offering inspired thematic projects. Art Hive @Agnes addresses themes of empowerment, wellness and self-care while fostering a safe space and a sense of community. This weekly program is free and projects are designed to use materials you already have on hand. No artistic experience is necessary.

This program is made possible through the generous support of the Birks Family Foundation.

Facilitator Biography:

Harper Johnston, BA, B.Ed, MFA, DTATI has over thirty years of experience working as an arts educator with adults, adolescents and children. She is a professional art therapist, a play therapy intern and is currently completing the requisite hours to become a Registered Psychotherapist. Harper also worked in film for many years as a stills photographer and camera assistant. Her film work, primarily with the C.B.C. and the National Film Board, took her all over the world. Harper has received numerous arts council grants and her photography has been shown across the country. She also has work in the Canada Council’s Art Bank permanent collection. Harper is friendly and enthusiastic and is always happy when called upon to share her creative ideas and studio knowledge.

 Harper has been facilitating Art Hive @Agnes since January 2019.

Art Hive @Agnes is online! Join this creative community and make time for yourself to recharge and get inspired! Artmaking is innately therapeutic and Art Hive invites you to experiment and play as you explore the artistic process. If you are looking for more guidance, our art therapist and facilitator is present to support your creative journey by offering inspired thematic projects. Art Hive @Agnes addresses themes of empowerment, wellness and self-care while fostering a safe space and a sense of community. This weekly program is free and projects are designed to use materials you already have on hand. No artistic experience is necessary.

This program is made possible through the generous support of the Birks Family Foundation.

Facilitator Biography:

Harper Johnston, BA, B.Ed, MFA, DTATI has over thirty years of experience working as an arts educator with adults, adolescents and children. She is a professional art therapist, a play therapy intern and is currently completing the requisite hours to become a Registered Psychotherapist. Harper also worked in film for many years as a stills photographer and camera assistant. Her film work, primarily with the C.B.C. and the National Film Board, took her all over the world. Harper has received numerous arts council grants and her photography has been shown across the country. She also has work in the Canada Council’s Art Bank permanent collection. Harper is friendly and enthusiastic and is always happy when called upon to share her creative ideas and studio knowledge.

 Harper has been facilitating Art Hive @Agnes since January 2019.

Michèle LaRose reflects her ongoing fascination with edgy colour and its interplay with shape and space. The show will include several selections from series such as her TRIBUTE SUITE which reflects on other artists who have guided her along her path, and the BENDING THE CURVE drawings completed in early 2020, when everyone was hunkered down and uncertain about what was in store. Drawn on black paper, they convey the sense of concern and unease we all felt at this completely new experience, and continue to feel.

Meet the Artist on October 30 between 1:30 and 3:00 pm at 254 Pinnacle St. Belleville, ON.

Art Hive @Agnes is online! Join this creative community and make time for yourself to recharge and get inspired! Artmaking is innately therapeutic and Art Hive invites you to experiment and play as you explore the artistic process. If you are looking for more guidance, our art therapist and facilitator is present to support your creative journey by offering inspired thematic projects. Art Hive @Agnes addresses themes of empowerment, wellness and self-care while fostering a safe space and a sense of community. This weekly program is free and projects are designed to use materials you already have on hand. No artistic experience is necessary.

This program is made possible through the generous support of the Birks Family Foundation.

Facilitator Biography:

Harper Johnston, BA, B.Ed, MFA, DTATI has over thirty years of experience working as an arts educator with adults, adolescents and children. She is a professional art therapist, a play therapy intern and is currently completing the requisite hours to become a Registered Psychotherapist. Harper also worked in film for many years as a stills photographer and camera assistant. Her film work, primarily with the C.B.C. and the National Film Board, took her all over the world. Harper has received numerous arts council grants and her photography has been shown across the country. She also has work in the Canada Council’s Art Bank permanent collection. Harper is friendly and enthusiastic and is always happy when called upon to share her creative ideas and studio knowledge.

 Harper has been facilitating Art Hive @Agnes since January 2019.

Art Hive @Agnes is online! Join this creative community and make time for yourself to recharge and get inspired! Artmaking is innately therapeutic and Art Hive invites you to experiment and play as you explore the artistic process. If you are looking for more guidance, our art therapist and facilitator is present to support your creative journey by offering inspired thematic projects. Art Hive @Agnes addresses themes of empowerment, wellness and self-care while fostering a safe space and a sense of community. This weekly program is free and projects are designed to use materials you already have on hand. No artistic experience is necessary.

This program is made possible through the generous support of the Birks Family Foundation.

Facilitator Biography:

Harper Johnston, BA, B.Ed, MFA, DTATI has over thirty years of experience working as an arts educator with adults, adolescents and children. She is a professional art therapist, a play therapy intern and is currently completing the requisite hours to become a Registered Psychotherapist. Harper also worked in film for many years as a stills photographer and camera assistant. Her film work, primarily with the C.B.C. and the National Film Board, took her all over the world. Harper has received numerous arts council grants and her photography has been shown across the country. She also has work in the Canada Council’s Art Bank permanent collection. Harper is friendly and enthusiastic and is always happy when called upon to share her creative ideas and studio knowledge.

 Harper has been facilitating Art Hive @Agnes since January 2019.

Art Hive @Agnes is online! Join this creative community and make time for yourself to recharge and get inspired! Artmaking is innately therapeutic and Art Hive invites you to experiment and play as you explore the artistic process. If you are looking for more guidance, our art therapist and facilitator is present to support your creative journey by offering inspired thematic projects. Art Hive @Agnes addresses themes of empowerment, wellness and self-care while fostering a safe space and a sense of community. This weekly program is free and projects are designed to use materials you already have on hand. No artistic experience is necessary.

This program is made possible through the generous support of the Birks Family Foundation.

Facilitator Biography:

Harper Johnston, BA, B.Ed, MFA, DTATI has over thirty years of experience working as an arts educator with adults, adolescents and children. She is a professional art therapist, a play therapy intern and is currently completing the requisite hours to become a Registered Psychotherapist. Harper also worked in film for many years as a stills photographer and camera assistant. Her film work, primarily with the C.B.C. and the National Film Board, took her all over the world. Harper has received numerous arts council grants and her photography has been shown across the country. She also has work in the Canada Council’s Art Bank permanent collection. Harper is friendly and enthusiastic and is always happy when called upon to share her creative ideas and studio knowledge.

 Harper has been facilitating Art Hive @Agnes since January 2019.

The cotton industry advanced climate change, widened global income disparity and commercialized the oppression of marginalized communities. Lives were irrevocably changed by these effects. History Is Rarely Black or White focuses on people groups brought forcibly to North America through the Transatlantic Slave Trade, as well as their descendants in the United States and Canada.

The exhibition interrogates cotton garments in the Queen’s Collection of Canadian Dress through archival research and scientific analysis that connects these materials to resource extraction, Indigenous displacement, enslaved labour, and the Underground Railroad. This history is also shown through tintypes and artifacts.

History Is Rarely Black or White engages contemporary art and fashion to examine colonial history and envision a radically positive future. Artists Karin Jones, Gordon Shadrach and Damian Joel demonstrate the manner in which the burden of colonial history entwines itself in research, making and cultural heritage. Jones and Shadrach discuss the ongoing legacies of oppression that created the global cotton industry. Joel mines the history of enslavement, migration and making in his fashion story, Songs of the Gullah. The inclusion of his work brings the exhibition full circle by juxtaposing the collections at Agnes with contemporary pieces based on similar networks of relation.

Curated by Jason Cyrus

 History Is Rarely Black or White is generously supported by Bader Philanthropies, Inc. Jason Cyrus would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario through the Curatorial Projects: Indigenous and Culturally Diverse program for supporting this exhibition.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/history-is-rarely-black-or-white/

Ezi Odozor’s commissioned long-form poem, with audio/visual components creates a narrative arc between the exhibitions History Is Rarely Black or White and With Opened Mouths. The poem invites guests into the space, offering a passageway to the world of the work, but also standing as a bridge for the multiple worlds we all inhabit. The poem functions with roots and routes for interpretation and experience that are both at once unique and shared. 

Ezi (Ezinwanne) Odozor is a Nigerian-born writer, student support specialist, and anti-racist practitioner based in Toronto. Her work, both fiction and non-fiction, focuses on themes of identity, culture, gender, race, health and intimacy. Her writing has also been showcased in multiple exhibits, most notably in Oluseye’s “A Room Full of Black Boys,” which was featured on CBC.

Curated by Emelie Chhangur

This exhibition is supported by the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/ezi-odozor/

Join Curator Jason Cyrus and special guests for this online series of talks on topics connected to the exhibition History Is Rarely Black or White.

3 December:       Black Bodies, White Gold:
Unpacking slavery and North American cotton production with Anna Arabindan-Kesson and Anne-Marie Guérin. The global thirst for cotton was fueled by the atrocities of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Anna Arabindan Kesson will join History Is Rarely Black or White curator Jason Cyrus and conservator Anne-Marie Guérin to discuss the ways in which they harnessed science, conservation, and historical research to spotlight the Black life at the core of the Victorian cotton industry.

14 January:        Fully Known: Cotton

Production, Black History, and the Canadian Experience with Charmaine Nelson and Shannon Prince Charmaine Nelson and Shannon Prince join Jason Cyrus to investigate the ways in which cotton production in the United States forever changed the landscape of Canadian diversity. Together they tell the stories of Black people on both sides of the border by connecting the Victorian cotton industry with the Underground Railroad and settlement in Canada while addressing the related colonial legacies that still affect Black Canadian life today.

11 February:      Style as Armour: Identity,
Clothing, and Self-Fashioning in History Is Rarely Black or White with Julie Crooks and Nigel Lezama

Julie Crooks and Nigel Lezama join Jason Cyrus to explore the use of style to both affirm one’s personhood and challenge oppression. Together they examine archival tintypes, contemporary portraiture, and Victorian cotton clothing to shine a light on clothing’s important role in constructing Black identity. 

Sign up to save your spot: https://agnes.queensu.ca/participate/talks-tours-events/hirbow-speaker-series/

The African mask is the face of African art. Displaced and misunderstood, it is a brutalized face through its reluctant association with Western art history, anthropology and art museums. With Opened Mouths reflects on the masks’ presence in an alien context, on alien soil, in alien air. The masks are here not as representatives of who used them or to index what they were used for. Instead, With Opened Mouths attends to the absences surrounding these powerful objects: the absence of people, voices, sound and movement.

The exhibition is a performative engagement with absence and a space to open incipient dialogues between these masks and contemporary art produced by artists residing in Turtle Island, some from the African diaspora. With Opened Mouths speaks the language of refusal, but intonates possibilities for new affinities and new sounds of potential.

Curated by Dr Qanita Lilla

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/with-opened-mouths/

Other Worlds is the third in a series of exhibitions organized by Amy Malbeuf and Jessie Ray Short exploring the work of Métis artists. In this iteration, Amy Malbeuf, Suzanne Morrissette, Tannis Nielsen, Jessie Ray Short and Tiffany Shaw-Collinge ground themselves within and move beyond the earth and solar system to ruminate on outer, inner, and deep space. With a particular focus on the ethereality of science and technology, the artists examine their relationships to unseen forces and concepts of spirit and in/visibility.

Curated by Amy Malbeuf and Jessie Ray Short

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/other-worlds/

Caricature is a powerful art form that uses exaggeration and humour to convey social and political
meaning. Humour Me traces the development of caricature, across several cultures and centuries, as a tool in dismantling power structures. While recognizing that caricature could be harmful in the reinforcement of stereotypes, this exhibition focusses on caricature that turns hierarchy on its head. The juxtaposition of opposites enabled caricaturists to vividly express ideas in rapid fashion. Through caricature, artists satirized politicians, wealthy urbanites, religious authorities and fashion trends, as well as themselves and their colleagues. The show highlights works by a number of the greatest practitioners of this art form, including William Hogarth,
Thomas Rowlandson, Paul Gavarni, Honoré Daumier and Elmer Boyd Smith. It also features self-reflective caricatures by Emily Carr, Pablo Picasso and John Young Johnstone. By bringing together a selection of engaging works on paper from Agnes’s Canadian and European collections, this exhibition offers a stimulating overview of caricature’s toppling history.

Curated by Dr Maxime Valsamas, Curatorial Assistant, European Art

Find out more:
https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/humour-me/

The social and moral implications of retreating oneself in solitude were vigorously debated in early modern Europe. While the benefits of a solitary state were exalted in the context of study and devotional practice, they were also understood to carry a moral obligation of mental fortitude. Theologians warned that time away from family and community could lead to depressive episodes or leave one vulnerable to temptation. Who was advised—or perhaps permitted—solitude, then, was carefully negotiated by cultural and societal norms.

The artworks brought together in this exhibition illustrate how artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Campen, Heyman Dullaert and Cornelis Bisschop confronted the accepted limits of seclusion in their work. Representations of figures solitarily engaged in studies, prayer, or song provided opportunities for an artistic exploration of human interiority and helped inspire ideals of devotion and
erudition. Situated in the context of the 2020–2021 pandemic, Studies in Solitude also considers how such images participated in the development of gendered and class-based conceptions of privileged space that are still felt today.

Curated by Suzanne van de Meerendonk

Studies and Solitude and its related programs are generously supported by the Bader Legacy Fund.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/studies-in-solitude-the-art-of-depicting-seclusion/

Pandemical Loneliness probes the role that the COVID-19 pandemic has played—as it exposes both great harm and hidden
opportunities—in restructuring interpretations and experiences of interior and exterior spaces. By linking atmospheres of distance, despondence, solitude and longing, a collective of curators explores the pandemic’s emotional impact on home life,
public space and daily existence. Situating works from Agnes’s contemporary and historical collections in Etherington House allows the curators to directly reprise and appraise homebound feelings of the pandemic, ranging from loss, to dread, to simple pleasures. The selection of painting, sculpture, photography, video, textile and print includes works by Stephen Andrews, Adrian Blackwell, Edward Burtynsky, Alan Collier, Douglas Coupland, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Drayden DeCosta, Rebecca Diederichs, Betty Goodwin, Alice Henriette, John Lyman, Kelly Mark, Florence McGillivray, David Milne, Kim Ondaatje, Ciara Phillips, Anne Ramsden, Mary Rawlyk, Jon Sasaki, Preston Schiedel and Lisa Visser.

Curated by Baraa Abuzayed, Will Boyle, Drayden DeCosta, Darby Huk, Zakary Jiwa, Elijah Nadler and Bingyu Sheng with Coordinating Curator Sunny Kerr, through Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies 830.

Pandemical Loneliness is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/pandemical-loneliness/

Art Hive @Agnes is online! Join this creative community and make time for yourself to recharge and get inspired! Artmaking is innately therapeutic and Art Hive invites you to experiment and play as you explore the artistic process. If you are looking for more guidance, our art therapist and facilitator is present to support your creative journey by offering inspired thematic projects. Art Hive @Agnes addresses themes of empowerment, wellness and self-care while fostering a safe space and a sense of community. This weekly program is free and projects are designed to use materials you already have on hand. No artistic experience is necessary.

This program is made possible through the generous support of the Birks Family Foundation.

Facilitator Biography:

Harper Johnston, BA, B.Ed, MFA, DTATI has over thirty years of experience working as an arts educator with adults, adolescents and children. She is a professional art therapist, a play therapy intern and is currently completing the requisite hours to become a Registered Psychotherapist. Harper also worked in film for many years as a stills photographer and camera assistant. Her film work, primarily with the C.B.C. and the National Film Board, took her all over the world. Harper has received numerous arts council grants and her photography has been shown across the country. She also has work in the Canada Council’s Art Bank permanent collection. Harper is friendly and enthusiastic and is always happy when called upon to share her creative ideas and studio knowledge.

 Harper has been facilitating Art Hive @Agnes since January 2019.

Art Hive @Agnes is online! Join this creative community and make time for yourself to recharge and get inspired! Artmaking is innately therapeutic and Art Hive invites you to experiment and play as you explore the artistic process. If you are looking for more guidance, our art therapist and facilitator is present to support your creative journey by offering inspired thematic projects. Art Hive @Agnes addresses themes of empowerment, wellness and self-care while fostering a safe space and a sense of community. This weekly program is free and projects are designed to use materials you already have on hand. No artistic experience is necessary.

This program is made possible through the generous support of the Birks Family Foundation.

Facilitator Biography:

Harper Johnston, BA, B.Ed, MFA, DTATI has over thirty years of experience working as an arts educator with adults, adolescents and children. She is a professional art therapist, a play therapy intern and is currently completing the requisite hours to become a Registered Psychotherapist. Harper also worked in film for many years as a stills photographer and camera assistant. Her film work, primarily with the C.B.C. and the National Film Board, took her all over the world. Harper has received numerous arts council grants and her photography has been shown across the country. She also has work in the Canada Council’s Art Bank permanent collection. Harper is friendly and enthusiastic and is always happy when called upon to share her creative ideas and studio knowledge.

 Harper has been facilitating Art Hive @Agnes since January 2019.

Art Hive @Agnes is online! Join this creative community and make time for yourself to recharge and get inspired! Artmaking is innately therapeutic and Art Hive invites you to experiment and play as you explore the artistic process. If you are looking for more guidance, our art therapist and facilitator is present to support your creative journey by offering inspired thematic projects. Art Hive @Agnes addresses themes of empowerment, wellness and self-care while fostering a safe space and a sense of community. This weekly program is free and projects are designed to use materials you already have on hand. No artistic experience is necessary.

This program is made possible through the generous support of the Birks Family Foundation.

Facilitator Biography:

Harper Johnston, BA, B.Ed, MFA, DTATI has over thirty years of experience working as an arts educator with adults, adolescents and children. She is a professional art therapist, a play therapy intern and is currently completing the requisite hours to become a Registered Psychotherapist. Harper also worked in film for many years as a stills photographer and camera assistant. Her film work, primarily with the C.B.C. and the National Film Board, took her all over the world. Harper has received numerous arts council grants and her photography has been shown across the country. She also has work in the Canada Council’s Art Bank permanent collection. Harper is friendly and enthusiastic and is always happy when called upon to share her creative ideas and studio knowledge.

 Harper has been facilitating Art Hive @Agnes since January 2019.

The cotton industry advanced climate change, widened global income disparity and commercialized the oppression of marginalized communities. Lives were irrevocably changed by these effects. History Is Rarely Black or White focuses on people groups brought forcibly to North America through the Transatlantic Slave Trade, as well as their descendants in the United States and Canada.

The exhibition interrogates cotton garments in the Queen’s Collection of Canadian Dress through archival research and scientific analysis that connects these materials to resource extraction, Indigenous displacement, enslaved labour, and the Underground Railroad. This history is also shown through tintypes and artifacts.

History Is Rarely Black or White engages contemporary art and fashion to examine colonial history and envision a radically positive future. Artists Karin Jones, Gordon Shadrach and Damian Joel demonstrate the manner in which the burden of colonial history entwines itself in research, making and cultural heritage. Jones and Shadrach discuss the ongoing legacies of oppression that created the global cotton industry. Joel mines the history of enslavement, migration and making in his fashion story, Songs of the Gullah. The inclusion of his work brings the exhibition full circle by juxtaposing the collections at Agnes with contemporary pieces based on similar networks of relation.

Curated by Jason Cyrus

 History Is Rarely Black or White is generously supported by Bader Philanthropies, Inc. Jason Cyrus would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario through the Curatorial Projects: Indigenous and Culturally Diverse program for supporting this exhibition.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/history-is-rarely-black-or-white/

Ezi Odozor’s commissioned long-form poem, with audio/visual components creates a narrative arc between the exhibitions History Is Rarely Black or White and With Opened Mouths. The poem invites guests into the space, offering a passageway to the world of the work, but also standing as a bridge for the multiple worlds we all inhabit. The poem functions with roots and routes for interpretation and experience that are both at once unique and shared. 

Ezi (Ezinwanne) Odozor is a Nigerian-born writer, student support specialist, and anti-racist practitioner based in Toronto. Her work, both fiction and non-fiction, focuses on themes of identity, culture, gender, race, health and intimacy. Her writing has also been showcased in multiple exhibits, most notably in Oluseye’s “A Room Full of Black Boys,” which was featured on CBC.

Curated by Emelie Chhangur

This exhibition is supported by the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/ezi-odozor/

Gain a new perspective and understanding of current exhibition Lii Zoot Tayr (Other Worlds). Join us for this free lunch-hour tour led by our friendly Community Docents.

Lii Zoot Tayr is the third in a series of exhibitions organized by Amy Malbeuf and Jessie Ray Short that explores the work of Métis artists. In this iteration, the artists—Malbeuf, Suzanne Morrissette, Tannis Nielsen, Tiffany Shaw-Collinge, and Short—ground themselves within and move beyond the earth and solar system to ruminate on outer, inner and deep space. With a particular focus on the ethereality of science and technology, the artists examine their relationships to unseen forces and concepts of spirit and in/visibility. The resulting artworks are charged with ancestral and personal dreams, memories, and stories that push and pull on the limitations of human perceptions and raise questions about how knowledge comes into being.

The Community Docent training program is supported by the Iva Speers Fund for Art Education.

Join Curator Jason Cyrus and special guests for this online series of talks on topics connected to the exhibition History Is Rarely Black or White.

3 December       Black Bodies, White Gold: Unpacking slavery and North American cotton production with Anna Arabindan-Kesson and Anne-Marie Guérin

The global thirst for cotton was fueled by the atrocities of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Anna Arabindan Kesson will join History Is Rarely Black or White curator Jason Cyrus and conservator Anne-Marie Guérin to discuss the ways in which they harnessed science, conservation, and historical research to spotlight the Black life at the core of the Victorian cotton industry.

14 January        Fully Known: Cotton Production, Black History, and the Canadian Experience with Charmaine Nelson and Shannon Prince

Charmaine Nelson and Shannon Prince join Jason Cyrus to investigate the ways in which cotton production in the United States forever changed the landscape of Canadian diversity. Together they tell the stories of Black people on both sides of the border by connecting the Victorian cotton industry with the Underground Railroad and settlement in Canada while addressing the related colonial legacies that still affect Black Canadian life today.

11 February        Style as Armour: Identity, Clothing, and Self-Fashioning in History Is Rarely Black or White with Julie Crooks and Nigel Lezama

Julie Crooks and Nigel Lezama join Jason Cyrus to explore the use of style to both affirm one’s personhood and challenge oppression. Together they examine archival tintypes, contemporary portraiture, and Victorian cotton clothing to shine a light on clothing’s important role in constructing Black identity.

Sign up to save your spot: https://agnes.queensu.ca/participate/talks-tours-events/hirbow-speaker-series/

Join us and connect with your creativity at these accessible artist-led workshops featuring a talk with the artist on their practice, inspiration and career in the arts.

Join artist and young creator Evan Sharma as he presents his vision for the world through art and science. Evan leads participants in a workshop focused on creativity, painting, fashion, the environment and the future.

Artist Biography: Evan Sharma is a neo-expressionist artist who first received acclaim when, at 12, he was accepted into Canada’s largest juried art fair. Now 18, Evan’s work explores thinking about global challenges from the perspective of both art and science, some of which is based on his own experience as an award-winning environmental researcher. Evan has been named as one of Canada’s most talented young artists by NUVO magazine, one of Toronto’s most exciting artists and has presented his ideas on a number of stages, having given talks at C2, HATCH and TEDx. Evan’s work is now being acquired by collectors from NYC, LA, London and Dubai; he has appeared in a number of documentaries, including those by CBC Arts, CTV and Shopify Studios.

To date, Evan has donated art that has raised over $100,000 for various charities, including the United Way, hospital foundations, and VibeArts. He is also the founder of The CovART Challenge which raised funds for over 200,000 meals for Kenyan children affected by the pandemic, and RBLB, a wearable art line.

Register for $25: https://agnes.queensu.ca/participate/classes-workshops-camps/the-studio-evan-sharma/

This program is made possible by the Iva Speers Fund for Art Education.

Sign up to save your spot. We will send you the link to connect to this online program via Zoom.
https://agnes.queensu.ca/participate/talks-tours-events/deep-looking-history-is-rarely-black-or-white/

Slow down! Deeply observe works of art in History Is Rarely Black or White. Guided by a community facilitator, this contemplation practice allows for relaxation and new insights. Part of Agnes’s Wellness Program.

History Is Rarely Black or White  interrogates cotton garments in the Queen’s Collection of Canadian Dress through archival research and scientific analysis that connects these materials to resource extraction, Indigenous displacement, enslaved labour, and the Underground Railroad. This history is also shown through tintypes and artifacts.

The exhibition engages contemporary art and fashion to examine colonial history and envision a radically positive future. Artists Karin Jones, Gordon
Shadrach, and Damian Joel demonstrate the manner in which the burden of colonial history entwines itself in research, making and cultural heritage. Jones and Shadrach discuss the ongoing legacies of oppression that created the global cotton industry. Joel mines the history of enslavement, migration and making in his fashion story, Songs of the Gullah. The inclusion of his work brings the exhibition full circle by juxtaposing the collections at Agnes with contemporary pieces based on similar networks of relation.

This program is made possible through the generous support of the Iva Speers Fund for Art Education.

In this four-week course, Artist Nicholas Crombach introduces the fundamental techniques of clay modelling through observing a live model. Participants will begin to develop the skills to sculpt the basic structures of the figure and will establish​ ​an understanding of gesture, proportion, mass and form. All materials are included in the course fee.

Artist Biography: Nicholas Crombach (BFA, 2012) has been awarded the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award. His solo exhibition, The End of the Chase, travelled in 2018-2019, exhibiting at New Art Projects in London UK, Art Mûr Berlin and Art Mûr Montréal. In 2019 Crombach produced an exhibition of collaborative works with artist Nurielle Stern entitled Whale Fall, presented at The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo. Crombach’s work has been reviewed in Border Crossings Magazine and Vie des Arts.

Most recently, Crombach was commissioned by the City of Kingston to create Horse and Cart which was installed in Victoria Park in June 2021. From 2016-2017 Crombach participated in a year-long residency at The Florence Trust (London, UK) and has been invited to take part in a MASS MoCA residency (summer 2022) in Massachusetts.

Register for $150, $135 for members: https://agnes.queensu.ca/participate/classes-workshops-camps/sculpting-from-the-body-crombach/

This program is made possible by the Iva Speers Fund for Art Education.

The social and moral implications of retreating oneself in solitude were vigorously debated in early modern Europe. While the benefits of a solitary state were exalted in the context of study and devotional practice, they were also understood to carry a moral obligation of mental fortitude. Theologians warned that time away from family and community could lead to depressive episodes or leave one vulnerable to temptation. Who was advised—or perhaps permitted—solitude, then, was carefully negotiated by cultural and societal norms.

The artworks brought together in this exhibition illustrate how artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Campen, Heyman Dullaert and Cornelis Bisschop confronted the accepted limits of seclusion in their work. Representations of figures solitarily engaged in studies, prayer, or song provided opportunities for an artistic exploration of human interiority and helped inspire ideals of devotion and
erudition. Situated in the context of the 2020–2021 pandemic, Studies in Solitude also considers how such images participated in the development of gendered and class-based conceptions of privileged space that are still felt today.

Curated by Suzanne van de Meerendonk

Studies and Solitude and its related programs are generously supported by the Bader Legacy Fund.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/studies-in-solitude-the-art-of-depicting-seclusion/

Pandemical Loneliness probes the role that the COVID-19 pandemic has played—as it exposes both great harm and hidden
opportunities—in restructuring interpretations and experiences of interior and exterior spaces. By linking atmospheres of distance, despondence, solitude and longing, a collective of curators explores the pandemic’s emotional impact on home life,
public space and daily existence. Situating works from Agnes’s contemporary and historical collections in Etherington House allows the curators to directly reprise and appraise homebound feelings of the pandemic, ranging from loss, to dread, to simple pleasures. The selection of painting, sculpture, photography, video, textile and print includes works by Stephen Andrews, Adrian Blackwell, Edward Burtynsky, Alan Collier, Douglas Coupland, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Drayden DeCosta, Rebecca Diederichs, Betty Goodwin, Alice Henriette, John Lyman, Kelly Mark, Florence McGillivray, David Milne, Kim Ondaatje, Ciara Phillips, Anne Ramsden, Mary Rawlyk, Jon Sasaki, Preston Schiedel and Lisa Visser.

Curated by Baraa Abuzayed, Will Boyle, Drayden DeCosta, Darby Huk, Zakary Jiwa, Elijah Nadler and Bingyu Sheng with Coordinating Curator Sunny Kerr, through Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies 830.

Pandemical Loneliness is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/pandemical-loneliness/

The cotton industry advanced climate change, widened global income disparity and commercialized the oppression of marginalized communities. Lives were irrevocably changed by these effects. History Is Rarely Black or White focuses on people groups brought forcibly to North America through the Transatlantic Slave Trade, as well as their descendants in the United States and Canada.

The exhibition interrogates cotton garments in the Queen’s Collection of Canadian Dress through archival research and scientific analysis that connects these materials to resource extraction, Indigenous displacement, enslaved labour, and the Underground Railroad. This history is also shown through tintypes and artifacts.

History Is Rarely Black or White engages contemporary art and fashion to examine colonial history and envision a radically positive future. Artists Karin Jones, Gordon Shadrach and Damian Joel demonstrate the manner in which the burden of colonial history entwines itself in research, making and cultural heritage. Jones and Shadrach discuss the ongoing legacies of oppression that created the global cotton industry. Joel mines the history of enslavement, migration and making in his fashion story, Songs of the Gullah. The inclusion of his work brings the exhibition full circle by juxtaposing the collections at Agnes with contemporary pieces based on similar networks of relation.

Curated by Jason Cyrus

 History Is Rarely Black or White is generously supported by Bader Philanthropies, Inc. Jason Cyrus would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario through the Curatorial Projects: Indigenous and Culturally Diverse program for supporting this exhibition.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/history-is-rarely-black-or-white/

In this four-week course, Artist Nicholas Crombach introduces the fundamental techniques of clay modelling through observing a live model. Participants will begin to develop the skills to sculpt the basic structures of the figure and will establish​ ​an understanding of gesture, proportion, mass and form. All materials are included in the course fee.

Artist Biography: Nicholas Crombach (BFA, 2012) has been awarded the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award. His solo exhibition, The End of the Chase, travelled in 2018-2019, exhibiting at New Art Projects in London UK, Art Mûr Berlin and Art Mûr Montréal. In 2019 Crombach produced an exhibition of collaborative works with artist Nurielle Stern entitled Whale Fall, presented at The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo. Crombach’s work has been reviewed in Border Crossings Magazine and Vie des Arts.

Most recently, Crombach was commissioned by the City of Kingston to create Horse and Cart which was installed in Victoria Park in June 2021. From 2016-2017 Crombach participated in a year-long residency at The Florence Trust (London, UK) and has been invited to take part in a MASS MoCA residency (summer 2022) in Massachusetts.

Register for $150, $135 for members: https://agnes.queensu.ca/participate/classes-workshops-camps/sculpting-from-the-body-crombach/

This program is made possible by the Iva Speers Fund for Art Education.

What Is…? is a series of casual and introductory talks focusing on subjects connected to current Agnes exhibitions and topical subjects in the art world.

Join Emy Kim, Queen’s Assistant Professor, Artifacts Conservation, as she leads a talk on art conservation. She’ll touch upon the role of a conservator in a museum, conservation training, ethics and some of the techniques used.

Speaker Biography: Emy Kim is the Assistant Professor of Artifacts Conservation in Master of Art Conservation Program at Queen’s University. She has worked in Canada and the US at the Royal Ontario Museum, Aga Khan Museum, Art Gallery of Ontario, Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, SFO Airport Museum, and Brooklyn Museum. Emy received her conservation training from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, an MA in art history at Williams College, and a BA from Princeton University. She is also currently a PhD student at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto, where she studies modern metals history.

Gain a new perspective and understanding of current exhibition History Is Rarely Black or White. Join us for this free lunch-hour tour led by our friendly Community Docents.

The exhibition interrogates cotton garments in the Queen’s Collection of Canadian Dress through archival research and scientific analysis that connects these materials to resource extraction, Indigenous displacement, enslaved labour, and the Underground Railroad. This history is also shown through tintypes and artifacts.

History Is Rarely Black or White engages contemporary art and fashion to examine colonial history and envision a radically positive future. Artists Karin Jones, Gordon Shadrach, and Damian Joel demonstrate the manner in which the burden of colonial history entwines itself in research, making and cultural heritage. Jones and Shadrach discuss the ongoing legacies of oppression that created the global cotton industry. Joel mines the history of enslavement, migration and making in his fashion story, Songs of the Gullah. The inclusion of his work brings the exhibition full circle by juxtaposing the collections at Agnes with contemporary pieces based on similar networks of relation.

The Community Docent training program is supported by the Iva Speers Fund for Art Education.

In this four-week course, Artist Nicholas Crombach introduces the fundamental techniques of clay modelling through observing a live model. Participants will begin to develop the skills to sculpt the basic structures of the figure and will establish​ ​an understanding of gesture, proportion, mass and form. All materials are included in the course fee.

Artist Biography: Nicholas Crombach (BFA, 2012) has been awarded the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award. His solo exhibition, The End of the Chase, travelled in 2018-2019, exhibiting at New Art Projects in London UK, Art Mûr Berlin and Art Mûr Montréal. In 2019 Crombach produced an exhibition of collaborative works with artist Nurielle Stern entitled Whale Fall, presented at The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo. Crombach’s work has been reviewed in Border Crossings Magazine and Vie des Arts.

Most recently, Crombach was commissioned by the City of Kingston to create Horse and Cart which was installed in Victoria Park in June 2021. From 2016-2017 Crombach participated in a year-long residency at The Florence Trust (London, UK) and has been invited to take part in a MASS MoCA residency (summer 2022) in Massachusetts.

Register for $150, $135 for members: https://agnes.queensu.ca/participate/classes-workshops-camps/sculpting-from-the-body-crombach/

This program is made possible by the Iva Speers Fund for Art Education.

Join Curator Jason Cyrus and special guests for this online series of talks on topics connected to the exhibition History Is Rarely Black or White.

3 December        Black Bodies, White Gold: Unpacking slavery and North American cotton production with Anna Arabindan-Kesson and Anne-Marie Guérin

The global thirst for cotton was fueled by the atrocities of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Anna Arabindan Kesson will join History Is Rarely Black or White curator Jason Cyrus and conservator Anne-Marie Guérin to discuss the ways in which they harnessed science, conservation, and historical research to spotlight the Black life at the core of the Victorian cotton industry.

14 January        Fully Known: Cotton Production, Black History, and the Canadian Experience with Charmaine Nelson and Shannon Prince

Charmaine Nelson and Shannon Prince join Jason Cyrus to investigate the ways in which cotton production in the United States forever changed the landscape of Canadian diversity. Together they tell the stories of Black people on both sides of the border by connecting the Victorian cotton industry with the Underground Railroad and settlement in Canada while addressing the related colonial legacies that still affect Black Canadian life today.

11 February       Style as Armour: Identity, Clothing, and Self-Fashioning in History Is Rarely Black or White with Julie Crooks and Nigel Lezama

Julie Crooks and Nigel Lezama join Jason Cyrus to explore the use of style to both affirm one’s personhood and challenge oppression. Together they examine archival tintypes, contemporary portraiture, and Victorian cotton clothing to shine a light on clothing’s important role in constructing Black identity.

The social and moral implications of retreating oneself in solitude were vigorously debated in early modern Europe. While the benefits of a solitary state were exalted in the context of study and devotional practice, they were also understood to carry a moral obligation of mental fortitude. Theologians warned that time away from family and community could lead to depressive episodes or leave one vulnerable to temptation. Who was advised—or perhaps permitted—solitude, then, was carefully negotiated by cultural and societal norms.

The artworks brought together in this exhibition illustrate how artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Campen, Heyman Dullaert and Cornelis Bisschop confronted the accepted limits of seclusion in their work. Representations of figures solitarily engaged in studies, prayer, or song provided opportunities for an artistic exploration of human interiority and helped inspire ideals of devotion and
erudition. Situated in the context of the 2020–2021 pandemic, Studies in Solitude also considers how such images participated in the development of gendered and class-based conceptions of privileged space that are still felt today.

Curated by Suzanne van de Meerendonk

Studies and Solitude and its related programs are generously supported by the Bader Legacy Fund.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/studies-in-solitude-the-art-of-depicting-seclusion/

Pandemical Loneliness probes the role that the COVID-19 pandemic has played—as it exposes both great harm and hidden
opportunities—in restructuring interpretations and experiences of interior and exterior spaces. By linking atmospheres of distance, despondence, solitude and longing, a collective of curators explores the pandemic’s emotional impact on home life,
public space and daily existence. Situating works from Agnes’s contemporary and historical collections in Etherington House allows the curators to directly reprise and appraise homebound feelings of the pandemic, ranging from loss, to dread, to simple pleasures. The selection of painting, sculpture, photography, video, textile and print includes works by Stephen Andrews, Adrian Blackwell, Edward Burtynsky, Alan Collier, Douglas Coupland, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Drayden DeCosta, Rebecca Diederichs, Betty Goodwin, Alice Henriette, John Lyman, Kelly Mark, Florence McGillivray, David Milne, Kim Ondaatje, Ciara Phillips, Anne Ramsden, Mary Rawlyk, Jon Sasaki, Preston Schiedel and Lisa Visser.

Curated by Baraa Abuzayed, Will Boyle, Drayden DeCosta, Darby Huk, Zakary Jiwa, Elijah Nadler and Bingyu Sheng with Coordinating Curator Sunny Kerr, through Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies 830.

Pandemical Loneliness is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/pandemical-loneliness/

The cotton industry advanced climate change, widened global income disparity and commercialized the oppression of marginalized communities. Lives were irrevocably changed by these effects. History Is Rarely Black or White focuses on people groups brought forcibly to North America through the Transatlantic Slave Trade, as well as their descendants in the United States and Canada.

The exhibition interrogates cotton garments in the Queen’s Collection of Canadian Dress through archival research and scientific analysis that connects these materials to resource extraction, Indigenous displacement, enslaved labour, and the Underground Railroad. This history is also shown through tintypes and artifacts.

History Is Rarely Black or White engages contemporary art and fashion to examine colonial history and envision a radically positive future. Artists Karin Jones, Gordon Shadrach and Damian Joel demonstrate the manner in which the burden of colonial history entwines itself in research, making and cultural heritage. Jones and Shadrach discuss the ongoing legacies of oppression that created the global cotton industry. Joel mines the history of enslavement, migration and making in his fashion story, Songs of the Gullah. The inclusion of his work brings the exhibition full circle by juxtaposing the collections at Agnes with contemporary pieces based on similar networks of relation.

Curated by Jason Cyrus

 History Is Rarely Black or White is generously supported by Bader Philanthropies, Inc. Jason Cyrus would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario through the Curatorial Projects: Indigenous and Culturally Diverse program for supporting this exhibition.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/history-is-rarely-black-or-white/

Gain a new perspective and understanding of current exhibition Studies in Solitude. Join us for this free lunch-hour tour led by our friendly Community Docents.

The social and moral implications of retreating oneself in solitude were vigorously debated in early modern Europe. While the benefits of a solitary state were exalted in the context of scholarly study and Christian devotional practice, they were also understood to carry a moral obligation of mental fortitude. Theologians in particular warned that time away from family and community could lead to depressive episodes or leave one vulnerable to temptation. Who was advised—or perhaps permitted—solitude, then, was carefully negotiated by cultural and societal norms.

The artworks brought together in Studies in Solitude illustrate how early modern Dutch artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Campen, Heyman Dullaert and Cornelis Bisschop confronted the accepted limits of seclusion in their work. Representations of figures solitarily engaged in studies, prayer, or song provided opportunities for an artistic exploration of human interiority and helped inspire ideals of devotion and erudition. Situated in the context of renewed concerns around topics of isolation and exposure brought on by the 2020-2021 pandemic, Studies in Solitude also considers how such images participated in the development of gendered and class-based conceptions of privileged space that are still felt today.

The Community Docent training program is supported by the Iva Speers Fund for Art Education.

The social and moral implications of retreating oneself in solitude were vigorously debated in early modern Europe. While the benefits of a solitary state were exalted in the context of study and devotional practice, they were also understood to carry a moral obligation of mental fortitude. Theologians warned that time away from family and community could lead to depressive episodes or leave one vulnerable to temptation. Who was advised—or perhaps permitted—solitude, then, was carefully negotiated by cultural and societal norms.

The artworks brought together in this exhibition illustrate how artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Campen, Heyman Dullaert and Cornelis Bisschop confronted the accepted limits of seclusion in their work. Representations of figures solitarily engaged in studies, prayer, or song provided opportunities for an artistic exploration of human interiority and helped inspire ideals of devotion and
erudition. Situated in the context of the 2020–2021 pandemic, Studies in Solitude also considers how such images participated in the development of gendered and class-based conceptions of privileged space that are still felt today.

Curated by Suzanne van de Meerendonk

Studies and Solitude and its related programs are generously supported by the Bader Legacy Fund.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/studies-in-solitude-the-art-of-depicting-seclusion/