0:00

hi everyone my name is michael magnuson i am uh the new public program and

0:06

outreach coordinator at the article of alberta i just want to welcome everyone to our community tour led by anna edwards

0:12

the president of kerry west festival to start this program i would like to do a land acknowledgement we are currently in the

0:19

aj building which is in 36 territory in edmonton the traditional lands by diverse

0:24

indigenous peoples including the cree blackfoot metis

0:36

in gratitude to the many first nations metis and inuit whose footsteps have marked these lands for generations

0:42

and who’s continue to call this place home today this is the third edition of of the

0:48

re-launch of our community tour program which invites a new speaker each month to lead a tour of a current exhibition

0:54

giving our audience a unique perspective on the artwork on display we are in the exhibition

1:00

black every day curated by darren uh jordan this exhibition marks the 15th anniversary of five artists one

1:06

love an organization dedicated to promoting the vibrancy of edmonton’s african canadian communities

1:12

this aga lab community tour is made possible in part because through support from the heart and soul

1:18

fund by f4 i would also like to thank the canada council for the arts this is a hybrid program with people

1:25

attending in person and online we will have a q a at the end of the program if you’re viewing the store virtually

1:31

please use the q a function and we will try to answer those questions at the end

1:36

um i’m very excited to have anna edwards from kerry west festival lead this program and also supply the aga with some

1:43

wonderful costumes that are on display at the entrance of the gallery so make sure you come to the aga and check out

1:48

those costumes kerry west caribbean arts festival is one of edmonton’s most colorful and

1:55

vibrant festivals providing a platform to share popular caribbean music cuisine and carnival culture with western canada

2:02

the 2021 kari west festival will take place august 6th to 8th

2:07

it will be modified hybrid festival combining a virtual cultural showcase posted on facebook and youtube and

2:14

in-person events at churchill square and the central social hall uh without further ado

2:20

here is anna so take it away

2:26

well good afternoon everyone thank you so much for joining us today at the alberta art gallery just doing a

2:33

tour i’m so excited and honored to be here doing this tour for the 15th anniversary

2:41

of five artists black uh five artists one love um darren jordan has been a visionary in

2:49

our city five artists one love has been a staple

2:54

in our in the black history month

3:02

program and he’s provided a platform for black artists to

3:09

to share their art and what a wonderful thing that we’ve got our artists our local artists here

3:16

in the alberta art gallery so black every day what does black everyday mean

3:22

to me black every day for me is um it’s big part of the kerry west

3:28

festival and this year we’re celebrating our 37th year of the festival and i have

3:34

not missed one yet so uh thank you for being here and we’ll

3:39

start the tour i’m going to take time to give a little information about the

3:46

kerry west festival and just give my layman’s opinion on on some of the art that you’re gonna

3:54

see today so thanks for being here

4:07

so we’re going to start with this beautiful art beautiful photography and

4:15

this photography i think for myself i i didn’t always think of photography as

4:22

part of you know an artwork that you would see in in the gallery but this art here is definitely

4:31

art it’s definitely art and just what this artist captures with light

4:37

and the the human body and for me it’s so exciting to see a black

4:43

body in me in the art uh

4:49

emily shout him uh she is fantastic just the way the light

4:56

captures uh the body here i especially love the the showing of the

5:02

collarbone because mine was lost a long time ago

5:08

so

5:14

and the painted body is so it’s spectacular art

5:26

i invite you to get close and see the

5:36

details

6:14

so this next piece

6:20

by holly mckercher one of the thing like i was really taken

6:26

because it’s it indicates that the art was taken from uh

6:32

a palette an eyeshadow palette just reminding me that you can find art in

6:40

absolutely everything

6:45

but i i love the the colors

6:55

and this one’s woodland reminds me of being when you’re in the forest and just how all

7:01

the colors mesh together and going back to finding art in

7:07

everything part of kerry west when we’re making when we’re making our costumes

7:13

uh we often we come up with a theme and we build the theme

7:22

around the ideas and the costuming but we sometimes look for uh materials in everyday site like

7:30

the plastic containers that you get from your salad containers we use those to

7:38

uh make headpieces and it’s incredible what you can do and and make a beautiful

7:45

art out of

8:10

do

8:24

this art this constellation by aj lowden you have to really stand back

8:31

to to this

8:38

the story behind this is quite fascinating

8:43

it’s kind of tells a story of finding this art and

8:50

uh when i say it’s it’s almost overwhelming because when i see all these people that are part

8:56

of our history and like the figureheads and the icons

9:03

and and our pioneers and it’s

9:08

exciting for me to see how he’s depicted and a constellation

9:14

is actually a neat way of putting it because when you think of the constellations in

9:20

the sky they’re it’s kind of guiding you

9:30

and he’s formed the art to to look like like it they were old items found

9:38

which i find really interesting

9:48

you see the faces of martin luther king malcolm x

9:56

yeah and also nefertiti even pam greer is in there

10:03

it’s quite larger than life and that’s the

10:09

way this makes me feel

10:22

and some star trek references which i

10:30

love here’s another piece by holly

10:37

mckercher and this one is just so bright and colorful

10:47

she says that it’s inspired after a first date so it must have been a good date because it’s it’s it’s colorful makes me

10:54

happy and again you can find inspiration from

11:01

so many different things

11:07

and this is another one from holly

11:13

and this is centered around a poem that she wrote soulless heartless

11:20

trapped pain injustice integrity polluted

11:26

expression accosted confession twisted agony slow despair

11:33

bloodlust power perverted condition lies toll manipulation soul deception manifested human frailty

11:41

burst anguish fear enslaves incessantly perpetually

11:49

so you can see some of those emotions are really dark emotions

11:55

and i i get that feeling by looking by looking at this picture

12:05

it’s very dramatic very dramatic

12:14

but the the oranges and the reds still bring some bring some joy in it for me

12:28

we’ll move along to the next one

12:40

so lisa mays this one is called ancestral mardi gras

12:47

and i was really drawn to this one because it is a clear depiction of

12:54

carnival and the carnival of our ancestors um i’m not sure uh

13:02

many of you know that that carnival came out of the celebrations

13:09

after emancipation and our ancestors

13:17

they made lots of beautiful costumes out of whatever materials they can find at the time

13:23

and this just shows that the the colors back in the day they were very simple

13:29

they didn’t have the feathers and the jewels that we put on them now but it was a clear depiction

13:36

of of what what our costumes looked like

13:46

and yeah i love the brightness

14:05

today um our kerry west costumes we when we get together to make them

14:10

we call the the places that we make them and we call them mass caps because it’s it’s kind of like a cab

14:16

you’re all there together making the costumes and and working together on them

14:29

and it’s kind of a fellowship when they’re working together on these costumes

14:40

here’s another one by lisa mays

14:46

this grandmother and when i read the caption on this one it

14:54

it shows grandmothers through through the years and and um at a time

15:01

during slavery and it kind of it depicts the caste system

15:06

so as you see that the the different shades and the different colors uh

15:12

back in the time of slavery you had different privileges by the by the color of your skin so

15:20

uh the lighter colored slaves will give the better jobs the house jobs and and

15:27

that this kind of depicts that

15:35

and i think there’s uh an homage to that to the grandmother

15:42

the in the black community there is a strong matriarchal

15:49

presence and you know you much respect for your grandmother for

16:06

sure this is another one by lisa mays and i i

16:13

was really fascinated that this painting was all done in three colors

16:19

just red white and blue and it’s amazing that it can

16:25

there’s so much depth and it seems like you’re seeing more colors than those three so uh

16:32

quite talent to um to show that and this just this depicts

16:41

black pioneers or slaves working on the land

17:23

this artist fits soon so

17:29

this picture at actually when i when i first saw it um i figured that it was somewhere on

17:36

the plains of alberta and when i read the caption i

17:43

realized the artist was originally from aretha and it

17:50

was depicting aretha

17:55

it just reminded me that we’re probably more of the same than we

18:00

are different and the experience the the

18:06

working the land experience is something that people have experienced all over

18:13

the world and in much the same whether you’re

18:19

in africa or in your alberta other than the the weather changes but it’s it’s the

18:25

same challenges with well with the difficulty and the hardship in the land

18:35

i like the sky in this picture too it reminds me it’s just such a big sky

18:47

and here’s another one by fetsum

18:55

i was totally fascinated with this picture because it left me thinking what

19:00

happened in that room where was the person that was sitting in that chair

19:05

and was it a self-portrait

19:11

and why wasn’t there why isn’t there a head uh so yeah it

19:19

it seems so real and it the room

19:25

[Music] yeah the room there’s a feeling that comes with this with this picture

19:32

and i feel like there’s a shadow right there of somebody but yeah this one is it really got me

19:50

thinking

19:59

going to move into the next room

20:12

braxton santiago i have to smile big when i read his name because i think i knew braxton

20:20

well i’m sure i knew braxton before he was born uh his dad and i played in the trin cam

20:26

steel orchestra more than 30 years ago maybe almost 40

20:33

years ago i don’t want to age myself but uh we played

20:40

in the steel band and braxton’s whole family is very artistic

20:48

and as you can see it’s definitely rubbed off on him this is a portrait of it of his brother

20:58

and an amazing likeness to to his brother and

21:06

you can see that he’s a teenager at the time i just love the way he depicts him as a

21:13

teenager you know the slouched teenager look the kind of look on his

21:18

face like why are you why are you doing this why are you taking a picture of me why are you looking at

21:24

me that just look on his face but that kind of tells it all but

21:31

yeah i love his shading and everything in this picture

21:36

this painting i should say painting

21:44

and braxton works a lot with the human form

21:49

as you can see and he’s in his other work here

22:01

this detail of the the muscles in the way the body moves i think is

22:07

really really really talented to show

22:42

the next pieces here are very abstract

22:52

and really makes you think

22:59

renise renis is originally

23:06

jim from jamaica and a lot of her

23:13

art portrays some of the her caribbean her caribbean roots

23:24

i love that she’s used so many different textures

23:31

in her work you can see the fabric

23:36

ceramics and the detail

23:43

to really show express her work

23:53

and this is another one from release

24:02

when i saw this i really felt it without even reading the caption i

24:11

felt like this was somebody not really knowing how to how

24:16

they fit in like moving from one world to the next world and it’s amazing how

24:24

the the fabric and the the wood

24:30

and then you see some human features the eyes the ears so you

24:37

can see that it’s a human trying to fit in in an environment that maybe they

24:43

don’t fit in that’s the feeling that i get when i look at they’re trying to fit in in an environment and maybe melding into the

24:52

the landscape uh but you can still see they don’t quite

24:57

fit in yet

25:04

there’s even hair right going into into this yeah

25:13

it’s fascinating to see so many mediums used to express

25:54

so this is seems to be another cultural

26:00

uh depiction uh it’s just looking at the fabric and

26:07

again mixing the wood and

26:15

the fabric and the human form into there i just want to look at the

26:20

details on what she says about it ah and this makes sense now it’s a

26:27

melting pot and you see the all the different fabrics from maybe all different cultures molding

26:34

together and as the individual is standing on the melting pot

26:46

quite interesting

27:11

another very abstract figure using fabric clay

27:19

yeah very interesting

27:35

oh i also don’t want to forget and i don’t forget this one because this to use

27:44

such a strong and she’s a young artist this is such a powerful piece it’s a

27:54

large piece of wood again

27:59

showing that intertwined of the human form

28:05

with fabric and and wood

28:12

definitely a conversation piece and the detail that was already in the wood is amazing

28:21

and how she fit the fabric into it

28:30

very beautiful

28:35

if we’re going to wander into the next room

28:43

ah there’s another familiar name so judy robinson judy robinson

28:51

uh her father and my father were on the edmonton caribbean cultural association

29:00

board back in in the 80s and 90s together and

29:08

so i’ve i’ve known her for for quite a while her art one of the

29:14

things that’s fascinating with her art she says in order to

29:20

honor her ancestors she starts every piece on a black canvas and

29:28

whatever comes out of that she asks for guidance and whatever comes

29:34

out of that is is what she portrays

29:42

and a lot of her work seems to tell a story of of our ancestors

29:49

this one reminds me of the higher highlight i can never say that highly grits that you see on the inside of

29:57

of caves and

30:03

tells the story of like mythical mythical creatures or

30:11

figures that were probably pre our current religions

30:34

i really didn’t want to miss these ones on this side

30:44

now these figures here these paintings i love that it’s of

30:52

places that that you might have seen driven by alberta pool elevator and st albert like

30:58

that it’s exciting to see something that you might

31:04

know or might have seen i love to see people

31:12

not only people of color in in artwork but i love to see people that have shapes like real people

31:19

like me in artwork so that this is such a joyous

31:27

a joyous painting because you can see that she’s entertaining she’s doing her thing and singing and it’s

31:35

very true to life

31:41

this i now this richard lipscombe he didn’t put a name

31:48

to who his artist but i’m sure i know who this lady is she looks so familiar

31:55

and but i won’t say it just in case it’s not hurt but yeah it really looks like somebody

32:01

that i know and uh that’s exactly how she would

32:06

smile and she would be under an umbrella too if she needed it

32:15

this is clearly my granddaughter because that’s exactly what she would be

32:21

doing what she’s not supposed to be doing and and yeah it

32:28

it shows the the daring the daring and the freedom of being a

32:34

child

32:40

and this uh another everyday scene that you

32:48

and actually that i do see in my neighborhood like dad or a grandad walking with a with a child

33:01

even though i love abstract art but i i’m really drawn to this type of

33:08

these type of sceneries

33:13

so that one i just like this one is uh called i can fly and definitely definitely looks let’s

33:21

hope she let’s hope she really didn’t jump off and try

33:44

so these are i’m not even sure what what this type of art is called

33:52

i’m really intrigued by it because it reminds me of a time capsule

33:58

like i’m sure my uncle osmond had these shoes and we used to wear them to parties at

34:03

the villa vesuvius back in the back in the 70s uh this is trevor gurley

34:10

peters and uh it is it’s

34:16

really fascinating it’s on subway art

34:27

i like that but it does remind me of a time capsule

34:38

this poem on the wall is also trevor

34:44

and is this his too yes this is definitely a time capsule or what you might see in

34:52

a in a drawer in my bedroom or something it it shows it’s got all kinds of things

34:59

in here a big lighter zigzag papers

35:08

money let me read this objects collected by trevor peters that

35:15

relate to the years he spent living in taiwan ah so it is a time capsule

35:22

so yeah just all the things notebooks and

35:29

it really makes me want to go home and make one for myself

36:05

moving into the janet bentley gallery

36:20

all these portraits by shaheen small

36:29

they all look like people i could know

36:47

i really admire the shading in these pictures

36:52

and how it shows all the different shades of

37:00

of black

37:15

this one

37:23

death and rebirth to a chorus of biggie smalls because you were somebody before

37:29

anybody killed you acrylic on canvas

37:37

so

37:42

this

37:48

this actually when i look at it uh i have all different emotions because

37:56

it that looks like the cloud of death but it it talks about death and

38:04

and rebirth

38:30

um so this by shelco caesar

38:39

you know when i first came up to to this i was like what is this it looks like an

38:46

accident and it it is depicting some destruction so

38:54

art doesn’t always have to come out of of something beautiful but it always

39:01

tells a story and this one definitely tells a story uh

39:09

this it’s showing almost the the beauty that can come out

39:15

of destruction that there that the beauty still always exists

39:20

and there’s a dove flying off after after a bombed bus

39:30

and so life does go on after something

39:35

tragic after something very tragic happens

39:41

and i like that the medium is like pencil crayon on paper and it’s uh

39:50

just the shading and everything is is quite spectacular

39:59

this one this i just i see joy in it you know

40:05

when somebody’s laughing and they throw their head back and like you you see join but it also

40:13

is a look that somebody could have that same expression almost when they’re

40:18

in in pain and that’s what he’s conveying the spirit of

40:26

african pain and joy all in one expression

40:39

and i like that this picture is kind of it depicts at a night background you can see the blue

40:49

that kind of reflects

41:04

so keon courtney this is charcoal on paper with gold leaf

41:12

now those are ex extremely beautiful

41:19

portraits i like this one notice i have the same hairdo there

41:28

these are people that have inspired inspired the artist

41:39

the detail in the in the shading on these as is

41:47

very very incredible

41:53

you can’t even see the little line in their lip there it’s

42:17

that yeah the detail in the face every little

42:25

line and wrinkle and this is quite uh an

42:32

honor and i noticed that the halo and gold

42:40

leaf since we lost him last year

42:59

now keon courtney for me when i look at this this

43:07

is real modern art and it it

43:14

gives me the feeling of something that i would see in advertising

43:21

um i like the boldness of the colors

43:27

and yeah just the the contrast of the whole thing and

43:33

it’s really neat that it’s in it on a different medium like done on i believe that is

43:40

like acrylic yeah it’s very cool

43:56

i’m really excited and happy that five artists

44:03

one love was able to bring this exhibition to the alberta art

44:09

gallery and give the artists this fantastic opportunity to

44:15

display their work here over a period of time this video even though it’s not the

44:21

sound isn’t on right now but it does show all of the artists that are

44:27

taking part or most of the artists that are taking part in the exhibition today

44:34

i can um take a few more minutes to tell you more about what’s

44:40

happening at kerry west this year so we’re doing a hybrid of our of our

44:48

regular programming it was a real challenge this year to

44:54

actually do the planning because of the changing landscape of uh the restrictions

45:01

so we created a virtual platform so the the virtual platform will be

45:07

starting the show on friday night and we’re holding it on churchill’s at churchill

45:12

square because we were able to kind of combine the two so we’ll be showing our our friday night

45:19

program incorporating some live aspects to the show and we have a lot of

45:27

activities for children it’s very family oriented atmosphere so the program starts at 5

45:32

30 and the actual show will start at 7. so prior to that

45:40

it will have face painting uh there’s uh truck food vendors uh storytelling

45:47

[Music] and then when the the show starts we’ll have different artists that we’ve had

45:54

pre-taped on the show and we’re ending the night with uh a movie under the stars uh the movie’s

46:02

called basidi and it’s taken uh filmed in trinidad during the carnival

46:08

and featuring one of our famous soca artists marcel montano

46:14

saturday we’re having a parade and it’s a pop-up parade generally for the neighborhood

46:22

we’ve chosen a neighborhood to get up close and personal with

46:28

with the festival and we’ll have our our rum garden we

46:34

partnered with the central social hall we’ll have a rum garden from 12 to 5 on saturday and

46:42

on sunday it’ll be 11 to 4 and will just be it’s basically a watch

46:50

party for the for the virtual presentation if you have any

46:55

questions i’ll be here to answer some questions but also you can go to our

47:00

website at kerrywest.ca or follow us on instagram at

47:06

kerrywesty yeah thank you so much anna i guess we’re gonna move on to the question period we have a couple more

47:13

minutes and so we’re gonna see if there’s any questions from the audience here at the aga or also online we have people on

47:21

facebook and also on zoom so if you have your questions please enter them in the chat we had a

47:27

comment earlier that i just wanted to read out uh because anna you weren’t able to see it but it was about an artwork you were

47:33

talking about so it was about fatsoon’s last painting it was a submission during a show at

47:40

five artists one love where a part of the show theme was take a knee so remember that painting oh so you were

47:47

having some questions about that so this uh this person just gave some more information

47:52

so we’re just gonna wait if there’s any questions

47:58

yeah we have a comment that they really enjoyed the tour and so maybe i’ll just ask a question so

48:05

um one of the themes i really saw on the show and something that you touched on

48:10

was beauty can you talk a little bit more about like beauty in this exhibition and also beauty in

48:17

regards to uh kerry west so beauty in the exhibition uh

48:25

i guess for for a lot of for a lot of people of color you don’t always see images of your

48:33

that look like you in especially in the art gallery so

48:40

i think seeing that and seeing it in so many different forms i that was really showing really depicting

48:48

beauty in a form that i can relate to too um as far as kerry west well

48:55

everything is beautiful about about our parade and our and our cautious but the

49:02

our costumes are always built around a theme and once once the theme is

49:10

decided on then they they start building up from there and we use feathers and jewels

49:16

and fabrics to make it all make it all come to one but more than

49:23

more than that more than the theme sometimes it just tells the story there’s a lot of traditional masks

49:30

and that’s what we call our masquerade mask there’s a lot of traditional stuff that is um that is really just

49:36

there to to tell a story and the story of our ancestors like the jab jab which is they call it like a

49:44

devil mask they’re either painted blue or painted in black oil

49:50

they’re not beautiful per se but they do tell a story and a story of our ancestors so

49:57

yeah that so it brings its own its own beauty through storytelling yeah

50:03

and we’re so lucky at the hgh have two of your costumes on display yes so i want to encourage everyone to

50:09

go downstairs at the atrium where we have those costumes can you talk a little bit about

50:14

um like those costumes that are on display and also just uh just a little bit of the aspect of

50:21

the community because you talked a little bit about how costumes are made in the community and i’m curious

50:26

if that’s something that you can relate to this exhibition as well okay uh though the costumes that are on

50:33

display they were actually from 2017 uh from the mass band called trini fetters

50:40

and their theme that year was uh fire phoenix so spelled f-y-a-h

50:47

so because that’s the way we say fire so uh the the colors of it that so

50:56

the band was mostly red and then reds and yellows so it really

51:01

showed the the colors of the the colors of the flame and um

51:08

and the sparkle is covered with jewels so that the sparkle is there yeah that’s very cool yeah i

51:13

actually just got a question from lisa on the chat and they want to know is there an individual piece that is particularly

51:20

compelling to you and if so why

51:27

there are there were quite a few pieces that were compelling to me but

51:33

somehow um uh the pieces and now i forgot the

51:39

artist’s name the pieces that were a mixture of the wood and the fabric it’s not something that i

51:47

would normally that i would normally see and i just thought it was um

51:55

kind of groundbreaking and different and and yeah it just elicited something to

52:02

me and especially this story that it told of of something

52:07

uh about the melting pot but also the the the person that was

52:14

kind of out of their out of their realm not quite fitting in but but fitting in

52:22

yeah great great well we’ll just give it another minute uh lisa says great answer from the chat

52:35

so it seems like we don’t have any other questions so i’m just gonna leave it there uh

52:40

thank you from myself and helen who’s behind the camera working on this program for having you come to the aga

52:47

and leave this fantastic tour it was uh truly a pleasure working with you and uh

52:52

we are so excited to uh go to your festival next it’s going to be great do you have anything else you want

52:57

to say well thank you for having me and thank you thank you for letting us highlight

53:03

the kerry west festival and um i’m again very honored to be here and i

53:08

encourage everybody to go to uh five artists one love

53:14

uh at black history month as well and to come to see the exhibit because it’s really

53:20

really uh interesting in person great thank you so much okay

53:26

thank you

No results found