Black Wimmin: When and Where We Enter

Diasporic African Women’s Art (diasporic meaning African and Canadian wimmin in the arts). The exhibition consisted of multi-media works, including painting and sculptural installation, by eleven Black women artists who incorporated the aesthetics of Africa and the west from the viewpoints of Black women in Canadian society. This touring exhibition of Afro-Canadian artists exposed many people to the various cultures of the Canadian Black population, their contributions, and their creation toward the cultural mosaic of Canada. In conjunction with the exhibition, workshops are planned to take place at a community centre and/or public school. We would like to receive funding to assist with the presentation of the workshops. As recent accounts of racial disparity in and out of public schools are overwhelming the premise of this exhibition is quite timely; children, as well as adults, will be exposed to the art-making of a collective of Black women artists living and working in Canada. Also, these has been extremely limited exposure in the artistic community of the Atlantic region to Black women artists, despite the large Black population in the metro area. The format of the work addresses this need by creating an awareness of how art functions in a context outside of the perimeters of official white dominated art concepts.