In this iteration of Blueprints for the Afrofuture – an AGGV program curated by local film and dance artist Kemi Craig – Charles Campbell and Justine Chambers, both total powerhouses in BC, who didn’t really know about each other’s work, sat down at the Gallery to share an artist-to-artist talk and learn more about each other’s work.
Learn more about the Blueprints for the Afrofuture series here:
https://aggv.ca/curatorial-projects/b…
The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria is located on the traditional territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən speaking peoples, today known as the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations. We extend our gratitude and appreciation for the opportunity to live and work on this territory.
Videography and editing by Marina DiMaio.In this iteration of Blueprints for the Afrofuture – an AGGV program curated by local film and dance artist Kemi Craig – Charles Campbell and Justine Chambers, both total powerhouses in BC, who didn’t really know about each other’s work, sat down at the Gallery to share an artist-to-artist talk and learn more about each other’s work. …
Featured places
See more information in Google Maps
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria4.5(420)Art gallery
Use CTRL+F to find key words if it is a longer transcript.
0:00
Justine: You know, I feel like every time I start a project I say, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I really feel like this needs to happen.
0:06
[Laughter] Right? And it’s like, why are you, you know…
0:11
It’s making space for the things that are kind of ineffable,
0:16
but that have a deep, deep, deep logic.
You know? And the artwork sorts it out.
0:22
Charles: Yeah, exactly. And giving the room for the artwork to sort it out is like, for me that, that is key.
0:28
Otherwise it’s like, what’s the exercise?
0:30
In my work I kind of like reclaim that sense of a future.
0:37
And if you’re talking about this idea world building,
that we’re kind of building that world of the future,
0:45
for me, they’re like these momentary artifacts often.
Whether they’re in performance or in the kind of sculptural realm,
0:56
often I see the work as kind of sitting in the present,
but they don’t quite sit in the present.
1:03
They, they, they kind of
1:05
push back to some memory that I can’t quite grasp
because of all the disruptions in my history.
1:15
There’s so much that I can’t claim in my own history
because I don’t know it.
1:23
And those sort of cultural disruptions
that are repeated in cyclical fashions over time.
1:31
Like obviously the big one,
starting with transatlantic slavery and that ultimate rupture. Right?
1:39
But still they sort of, you know, obviously,
1:42
you know, it’s present in Black music
and Black dance and like there’s sort of this way that
1:49
the culture of that total rupture that we were inflicted upon, we still have this presence in our bodies
1:57
and in our minds and in our emotional lives, in the rhythms that we encounter, and so on.
2:05
So… I’m loosing my train of thought…
2:07
Justine: It’s perfect, I’m following. [Laughter]
2:12
Charles: But yeah, there’s this attempt to kind of find that
2:19
past, or allow that past to emerge, but then kind of projecting it
2:26
as these things that are almost from the future, or from a different space, like they’re not quite from here.
2:35
They’re slightly from somewhere else… It’s funny, it’s like an intuitive space. I don’t know how to hold onto that space.
2:42
I just, you know, try to let that happen in the work
because that seems to be the push the pull for me. Like, you know,
2:51
I want this idea of a future, but I don’t
quite know what the future I want is.
2:58
And I want to have access to this kind of past,
3:03
but I have no way of like… It’s been so, so broken.
3:07
I mean, you know, slavery, but also my
own family’s choosing to migrate from Jamaica, which is,
3:15
you know, all about the kind of internal politics in Jamaica
at that time.
3:20
What wasn’t possible there,
which in itself is a legacy of colonization and slavery. Right?
3:27
So that’s another repetition of that.
3:31
Justine: This is always my question, like these worlds
3:33
that I want to build, how do they continue past
the moment of that encounter or that process or that conversation
3:42
And then it’s so easy to feel quite
defeated at a moment like that. It’s heartbreaking,
3:49
because all the things maybe you’re dealing with were
just the reality, you know, it’s just sort of like the wound is torn open.
3:55
You can’t ignore that that is. That this is what it is.
What it’s always been maybe.
4:02
And that’s like, that’s so hard.
4:06
I always find that so hard that, you’re in a building, you make a kind of space, or you’re in a project, you make a kind of space and then
4:14
very quickly, you see how it can’t be.
4:19
And my thing is like we have to keep trying. We just have to keep trying.
4:23
Charles: Yeah, and I think that kind of draws you to the arts space in a way. That there’s… that they grant you permission to this.
4:34
Like people ask me, what do you do? And I’m like, I’m an artist. And they’re kind of like, okay… [Laughter]
4:43
It just gives you a little bit more latitude.
4:46
Justine: You know, when I started danceing, kind of like I’m going to dance,
4:50
I only did ballet for some reason, because I… And it was my choice.
4:54
Like no one was like, you have to go do ballet. And I was like I’m going to do ballet.
4:57
And I think there was something about it being strict.
5:00
Something about it being way too hard.
5:04
And something about it being completely unachievable.
5:06
That was, like, very enticing.
5:09
Charles: Unachievable in what way?
5:15
Justine: Because it is about an anatomical… like a kind of body.
5:20
That in terms of mobility of joints
5:24
like length of neck, there’s all these weird, which we can talk about how that’s related to the slave trade later.
5:30
Check your teeth, you know…
5:34
That I don’t have. Like I look like a dancer
because I’m short and skinny.
5:38
And I have long legs, but I don’t have these mobilities
5:42
that you’re supposed to have to be a dancer,
or this classical dancer. And I have a butt.
5:48
And that was always such a huge problem for my teachers. Oh it’s too bad about your butt, or else you’re kind of perfect.
5:53
My whole life, my whole life. But that’s okay.
5:57
You figure your way through it.
5:59
So I felt, in a way, like I would never be able to do it.
6:02
And I’m very much one of those people who’s like, Oh, you can’t do that, I’m like watch me.
6:06
So there is something about the pursuit of it.
But then I also started taking modern dance in Ottawa.
6:14
And that was more… I was like oh, I like that…
6:20
That feels kind of rule-breaky, because I also have a very rule-breaky
6:26
part of myself and like
6:28
definitely was raised to be an independent thinker
and to ask questions and to stand up for things that don’t feel right.
6:35
So there’s so much that doesn’t feel right about ballet…
6:39
Charles: You know, it’s
just so rare that you have the permission to dig in with somebody else.
6:44
And, you know, I often want to, but like we
don’t live in that world, that’s like
6:50
these conversations are just regular.
6:54
We kind of have to remain on the surface.
7:00
Justine: Yeah. Not too difficult.
7:02
And not too… maybe like you don’t want to…
7:06
Yeah, it’s a diplomacy thing, but it’s like bad diplomacy, because also then when do you get to it?
7:13
You know, I always say that so often
I try to get on starting terms really quickly with people.
7:19
It’s a joke I don’t really… but you know what I mean? I want to get to that place where there’s been some disruption, that you can’t come back from.
7:27
And now it’s here, so… I also really appreciate
how much you talk about the things you do in those vulnerable ways.
7:36
It’s nice when someone’s like, I don’t know why that happened… [Laughter]
7:44
Charles: No, like yeah. All the best pieces are like that. All of them.
7:48
It’s like I don’t know why I’m doing this thing, but I’m just going to keep f*****g doing it. I’m going to really do it.
7:54
And I’m still going to really do it, even if
I’m really actually still not sure why I’m doing it.
7:59
Justine: And even once it happens, you’re still not sure.
I always find it’s a little bit of like a couple of years later…
No results found