Year Three – 2022/23
activities and achievements
International Networking and Presentations
Christopher Cozier: Selected Works 2003-2020
Curated by Andrea Fatona
This exhibition featured four works of Trinidadian artist Christopher Cozier. Cozier’s oeuvre interrogates the production and reproduction of postcolonial/post-independence nationalist narratives and identities in the Anglophone Caribbean.
BLACK ARCHIVE ALLIANCE
Curated by BHMF (Black History Month Florence)
Black Archive Alliance was the first research platform advanced by The Recovery Plan*. It was designed to facilitate the development and proliferation of research dedicated to Black history within and beyond Italian archives that speak to diasporic studies and Globally inscribed Blackness. Collapsing personal and public archives and advancing a critical engagement with documents and images, this platform, since its inception in 2018, has worked with over 30 sites and more than 20 researchers. The selection of research presented for this occasion looks to the forms of social resistance employed to maintain a sense of cultural origins in the face of calls for assimilation masked through the language of integration. The display is enriched by a meditation on experimental methodologies for sharing the Black past with an insistence on narrative possibilities beyond institutional walls and a gesture towards the annotations that are needed in order to take a position in relation to the recovery from the violence of distortions advanced by white constructions of Black cultural values.
*The Recovery Plan is a research center that fosters transnational exchange around Afrodescendent cultures and peoples employing research, production and documentation in relation to cultural practitioners as a means for examining the history and contemporary legacy of Blackness in a global context. Designed as a cultural repository, research center and exhibition space for art, performance, lectures and socially engaged education, the center hosts a range of events, seminars, workshops and residencies that address Italy as a historic site for cultural exchange. Presented as a range of platforms, the initiative is a rallying of voices designed to facilitate cross-cultural research and dialogue.
A reception was held In collaboration with the Toronto Biennial of Art to welcome South African artist, Dineo Seshee Bopape to Toronto during the research phase of the artist’s production. Bopape is known for her use of soil and other organic material as a base for multisensory, multidimensional work that connects deeply with the earth. In addition to her packed earth installations, the artist also works with drawing, video, and sound to create a rich practice connecting to memory, belonging, and place.
Fellow Position Creation
A fellowship position was established to support a Black OCAD U faculty member, fostering collaboration and resource sharing. Our inaugural fellow, Prof. Esery Mondesir, is an acclaimed filmmaker.
Publication Initiative
The CSBCD collaborated with **C Magazine** to publish the **Otherwise** column, encouraging dialogue on Black cultural production through a call-and-response format, enhancing ongoing discussions in contemporary art.
Research Progress
We completed Phases 1 and 2 of data collection and analysis across partner sites, with efforts ongoing at Artspace, CFMDC, and VIVO.