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Curator Alyssa Fearon will present a behind the scene tour of BLACK PRAIRIES.
Join us for a special curator tour of "BLACK PRAIRIES" exhibition at Dunlop Art Gallery. Learn about the process of curating this unique and crucial exhibition. Refreshments served.
Alyssa Fearon is Director/Curator at Dunlop Art Gallery and RPL Film Theatre, where she oversees the strategic and artistic direction of these unique units of RPL. Integral to Fearon’s curatorial practice is a community-based approach that prioritizes the voices of historically under-represented audiences.
In 2018, Alyssa was the inaugural Curator of Nuit Blanche Toronto’s Scarborough zone. The interdisciplinary exhibition featured works from over 30 artists, authors, and performers. Fearon was also Curator at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba (2018 – 2020). She has held positions at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Independent Curators International, and lecturer positions at York University, University of Toronto Scarborough, and Brandon University.
She holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business and an MA in Art History from York University. Fearon is also a Salzburg Global Fellow and a member of Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization (CAMDO-ODMAC).
Alyssa Fearon
AGE GROUP: | Teens | Children | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Learn and Personal Interest | Art and Creation |
TAGS: | Language Learning | Indigenous Culture | History and Genealogy | Dunlop Art Gallery | Arts and Creativity | Artist and Author Talks |
Christina Battle, William “Billy” Beal, Anna Binta Diallo, Cheryl Foggo, Judah Iyunade, Richard Allan Thomas, Chukwudubem Ukaigwe, NASRA, Frank B. Jamerson fonds
BLACK PRAIRIES honours more than one hundred years of Black/African-Canadian cultural production in the Prairies, spanning the 1920s to the present, with a focus on lens-based media. The exhibition includes newly commissioned contemporary artwork, original glass plate negatives by early 1900s Black Manitoban photographer William “Billy” Beal, and archival photographs from the City of Edmonton’s Frank B. Jamerson fonds.
Beal’s glass plate negatives, taken between 1915 and 1925, document homesteading life in western Manitoba from the perspective of a lone Black man living in an all-white rural township during the early 1900s. Meanwhile, the photographs in the Frank B. Jamerson fonds, created by unnamed photographers, depict everyday Black life in and around Amber Valley, Alberta—a historic community formed during the Great Black Migration of 1910. This migration saw African-Americans fleeing racial violence in the United States to seek refuge in the Canadian Prairies. The selected photographs in this exhibition capture the first thirty years after the migration, reflecting the experiences of the first generation of Black migrants in the region. The contemporary artists in this exhibition foster important dialogues about personal histories, a changing climate, and collective experiences in the region.
Additionally, the exhibition includes the newly created short film For Caesar by filmmaker Cheryl Foggo. The film features Leander Lane, the great-grandson of Julius Caesar Lane, a founding member of the Shiloh People, the historic African-Canadian community in Saskatchewan.
BLACK PRAIRIES provides space for communal grounding and reflection on the ongoing and ever-expanding continuum of Black life and Black cultural production in the Prairies.
Image: Rosa and Mary, Amber Valley, Alberta c. 1940, black and white photograph, 5 x 6 cm. Frank B. Jamerson fonds, courtesy City of Edmonton Archives.
