Join us for a party to celebrate a new season of exhibitions, including:

The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture

Syrus Marcus Ware: Ancestors, Can You Read Us? (Dispatches From The Future)

Lucy Lu: Da Pi Yuan

Light refreshments and a cash bar will be available.

About the exhibitions:

The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture

Drawn from the extraordinary holdings of The Walther Collection, The Way She Looks revisits the history of African photographic portraiture through the perspectives of women, both as sitters and photographers. Spanning the beginnings of colonial photography on the continent to the present day, the exhibition features contemporary works by female artists, including Yto Barrada, Jodi Bieber, Lebohang Kganye, Zanele Muholi, Grace Ndiritu, and Nontsikelelo “Lolo” Veleko alongside 1950s studio portraits by such important historical figures as Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta, and nineteenth-century prints, cartes de visite, postcards, and albums.

Syrus Marcus Ware: Ancestors, Can You Read Us? (Dispatches From The Future)

Toronto-based artist Syrus Marcus Ware imagines a world where racialized people have survived the “Black death spectacle” writ large on the nightly news; survived the catastrophic impact of the Anthropocene; and survived the crushing effects of white supremacy. Commissioned by the Toronto Biennial of Art and the RIC, the artist draws on the shared language of speculative fiction and political activism to transform the Salah J. Bachir New Media Wall into a portal through which the next generation of racialized activists communicate with us, their ancestors, and offer us insights into the future.

Lucy Lu: Da Pi Yuan

In Da Pi Yuan, artist Lucy Lu explores the complexities of growing up with a mixed identity. Returning to her childhood home in Xi’an, China, to the gated apartment community where her grandparents still live, Lu documents the places and people that have remained vivid in her memories in order to understand what it means to be Chinese-Canadian. Through images and words, Da Pi Yuan examines notions of home, belonging, and the fragmented nature of memory.

Image: S. J. Moodley, [Two women wearing Western attire], 1981 (printed 2016), inkjet print. Courtesy of The Walther Collection