Revue Noire, African Contemporary Art: Issue 25 African Canada - July 1997

"Communities that assert a past in order to better root themsleves in the present are one of great paradoxes, As though unavoidable, to fill the haze, the gaping void of a country whose history remains to be written"

Simon Njami, 'Canada The Invention of Identity'  Revue Noire

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"In urban metropolises, no-one is certain of their identity.  The borders of identity become obsolete, impossible to verify.  As the figure of modern exile, works of art bears witness to the role of migration and multicural education in the inner labour of creators who experience  double exeriorization"

Joel Des Rosiers, Haitian/Quebec Doctor and Poet -  'Foreign Lands'  Revue Noire

Africanadian Playwrights' Conference

This was the inaugural  gathering of the  First  AfriCanadian Playwrights Series presented in collaboration with Canadian Stage Company and Young People's Theatre programmed by multi-talented Djanet Sears (Actor, Writer, Director)

Emerging Into Spirit: SCULPTURES by ARTIS LANE

This exhibition was a prelude to the launch of CELAFI 1997 and a home-coming celebration for Artis Lane, to bookmark the historic inaugural exhibition of the first Black Canadian artist to exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum-Canadiana Gallery. 

Programmer/Curator: Marva Ollivierre

Essayist: Adrienne Shadd, Historian, Writer

Artist: Artis Lane, Sculptor

Transforming The Image: African Canadian Visions Entering The Millennium

The paradigm of this exhibition is that we must dispose of the stereotypical "ethnic art art" label that is and has been ascribe to art work from groups outside of Euro-Canada.  Though their heritage is rooted in other countries, the artists who have created the works in this exhibition are very much a part of Canada's history and cultural mosaic:
 

Curator: Rosalie Smith McCrea,

Curatorial Assistant:  Orla Garriques

Artists: Jim Adams (White Rock, BC), David Alexander (Stirling, Ontario), Buseje Bailey (Toronto, Ontario), Gordon Christopher (Calgary, Alberta), Michael Chambers (Toronto, Ontario),  Ormsby Ford (St. Lambert, Quebec), Ali Hosein Ottawa, Ontario), Roberta Huebene (Ottawa, Ontario), Artis Lane (Ruidoso, New Mexico - formerly North Buxton, Ontario), Carlyle Matthew (Port Coquitlam, BC), Llyod Pollard (Brampton, Ontario), Barbara Prezeau Stephenson (Port-au-Prince, Haiti - lives extensively in Montreal), Yvon Villaceaux (Ottawa, Ontario), David Zapparolli (Toronto, Ontario)

Traces Of Identity

In essence, Canada is emblematic of the notion of the New World, And Toronto, lying at the heart of this vast expanse, is surely the archetype of this mix, this cohabitation of people from five continents, with histories and trajectories that are sometime contradictory ... The self we seek is often a heterogeneous assemblage of images, cliches and memories.  A hallucinated concept of the world, of self and it environment.  The challenge of the artist is to create a richness from this chaos, ...  It is to that genius that the five photographers presented testify - excerpt from Traces of Identity Curatorial statement

Curator: Simon Njami

Artists: Pedro Alderete, Stella Fakiyesi, Serge Emmanuel Jongué, Kirk Moses and David Zapparoli, 

From the Street: New Visions for the Millennium

From The Street: New Vision for the Millennium represents a number of component of multi-faceted curatorial practice we consider essential in building dialogue on Canadian Art, culture and national identity. From the Street moves the dialogue closer, demanding awarness and appreciation for the contemporary African Canadian aesthetic.

Ingrid Mayrhofer, Programme Director, A Space Gallery

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Curator: Rosalie Smith McCrea

Artists: Rose-Ann Bailey, Neville Clark, Chrystal Clements, Leslie Coleman, Jeff Gibson, Daniel "Keniko' Ivic, Sherman Jones, Melinda Mollineaux, Nicole Pena, Amir Shingray and Shawn Skeir