“Here We Are Here” Exhibit
September 11th, 2018Students will visit the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to see the exhibit ,” This exhibit ends a larger one (“From Africa to America: Picasso Face to Face, Past and Present”), which includes works by contemporary artists of African descent (including one by Kehinde Wiley, the artist who created President Obama’s official portrait for the National Portrait Gallery). Students will therefore have the opportunity to see these important works as well. This activity is designed to complement my Literary Themes course,”America”, a major focus of which is anti-black racism in the USA, by offering local perspective to enrich understanding and complicate the idea that Canada is a racism-free haven.
Project Update
Students visited the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to see the exhibit "Here We Are Here: Black Canadian Contemporary Art". In 11 pieces, this exhibit offered Black Canadian perspectives on a remarkably wide sampling of Black life and history in Canada, from the 18th century to the present moment. Following their visit, students wrote short reflection pieces on the exhibit as a whole as well as on the pieces that caught their particular attention; the exhibit was discussed in class as well. The goal of this project was to enrich understanding of Canadian history and Black Canadian experience, and to complicate the idea that Canada is and always has been a racism-free haven.
