Ivey Galleries, Second Level
Guest curated by Qanita Lilla, Associate Curator, Arts of Africa, Agnes Etherington Art Centre
Developed by the Agnes Etherington Art Centre (Agnes) and hosted by Museum London, Ukutula: Our Timeless Journeys centres on a display of sixteen extraordinarily diverse traditional West African masks. These masks, part of the Agnes’ Justin and Elisabeth Lang Collection, appear in chorus with the contemporary work of five Canadian artists from the African and Asian diasporas: Anthony Gebrehiwot, Jill Glatt, Jessica Karuhanga, Camille Turner, and Winsom Winsom.
Employing photography, new media and video, textile installation and more, the artists of Ukutula: Our Timeless Journeys reflect on diasporic roots by exploring themes of identity, transformation, the body, belonging, place and regional histories. The exhibition collectively invites us to explore the relationship between the past and present, and how our physical and spiritual journeys shape who we are.
About the Curator and Artists:
Dr Qanita Lilla is Associate Curator, Arts of Africa at Agnes Etherington Art Centre. At Agnes, Qanita cares for the Justin and Elisabeth Lang Collection of African Art and works with contemporary art practice from various diasporas to engage the African collection in the present.
Anthony Gebrehiwot is a visual artist and community leader who sees in photography an ongoing dialogue for social change. A self-taught artist, Gebrehiwot founded studio XvXy-photo in 2014, focusing on portraiture. His subjects appear as divine and otherworldly to explore Black identity and in response to racial tensions in North America.
Jill Glatt is a Katarokwi/Kingston, Ontario-based illustrator, printmaker, arts educator, and teacher. Her practice focuses on issues of ecology, community, and sustainability, and aims to inspire people to observe a less extractive relationship with the earth. Glatt’s artistic practice involves making dyes from foraged plants for paintings and prints.
Jessica Karuhanga is a first-generation Canadian artist of British-Ugandan heritage who addresses politics of identity and Black diasporic concerns through lens-based technologies, sculpture, writing, drawing, and performance. Karuhanga’s practice explores self-articulation, beauty, illness, isolation, and grief through intuitive approaches to drawing and performative movement, centring Black subjectivity and embodiment.
Artist/scholar Camille Turner’s work combines Afrofuturism and historical research. Her most recent explorations confront the entanglement of what is now Canada in the transatlantic trade in Africans. She puts into practice Afronautics, a methodological framework she developed to approach colonial archives from the point of view of a liberated future.
Winsom Winsom is a Maroon Canadian artist with a prolific career spanning several decades. Born and trained as an artist in Jamaica, Winsom’s art often explores themes of spirituality and identity. Her work is characterized by bold colours, dynamic brushstrokes and themes, and a sense of movement and energy.
Image: Anthony Gebrehiwot, from the Mahaba series, 2024, digital photograph on vinyl, Courtesy of the artist.
Ukutula is a travelling exhibition, developed by Agnes and hosted by Museum London, made possible by Justin and Elisabeth Lang Foundation and supported by the Ontario Council for the Arts, the Canadian Council for the Arts and the Government of Canada.