en français

Since our announcement and introduction in November, we look in on the progress and achievements of mentees Sarah-Tai Black and Alex Jacobs Blum, who were recently joined by Christina Leslie.

In collaboration with Cambridge Art Galleries, Sarah-Tai Black curated the exhibition To Build What We Become When We Dream at the Queen’s Square Gallery from March 4 – May 27, 2023, which brought together fibre-based works by Black women artists Katrina Coombs, Nnenna Okore, Chason Yeboah. Offering a model of Black women’s aesthetic practices as diasporic devices of communion, repair, and intervention, the artistic practices shared here refuse the expectation of self-abandonment and the conditions of the world as it is, centering instead an embodied dedication to one’s self and one’s kin as realized through space, form, colour, and tactility.

According to Pamela Edmonds, Mentor and McMaster Museum of Art’s former Senior Curator, “Sarah-Tai’s thoughtful and intelligent curatorial work has been an inspiration to see develop with their exhibition project and beyond it. Not only have they brought together extraordinary artists from Canada, the US and the Caribbean to present innovative installations of fibre-based work, Sarah-Tai is also contributing to vital discourses about creating spaces of care, imagination and resistance for Black women and girls.”

The realization of this exhibition marked the completion of Black’s time as a mentee in the program. The museum would like to extend our thanks to Pamela Edmonds for her mentorship and support, and a big congratulations to Sarah-Tai Black for your achievements!

As the Indigenous Curator in Residence at Hamilton Artists Inc., Alex Jacobs-Blum curated the exhibition Born Celestial which was on view June 10 – August 13, 2022. During her time in the mentorship program Jacobs-Blum has expanded on this and pursued the creation of an exhibition catalogue, with printed copies to be available soon. In a prelude within the catalogue, Jacobs-Blum shares; “We are all Born Celestial. Made of the Earth and of the Stars, we travel interdimensionally, accessing love and healing across all timelines. We look inward to see forward, held by the continuity of our Ancestors moving through us. As we are returning home to ourselves, we guide each other with tenderness and care into the future, each carrying gifts essential to the continued existence of all our relations.” Jacobs-Blum will be continuing with the mentorship program into September 2023, and looks forward to a solo exhibition at the Art Gallery of Hamilton in 2024.

Joining Jacobs-Blum is Christina Leslie. Christina Leslie is a Toronto lens-based artist interested in exploring and expanding the material and aesthetic possibilities of contemporary photography. Incorporating experimental and historical photographic processes in her artistic practice that explores the beauty and complex representation of people of the Black diaspora. She is newly represented by Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto and is also a member of the Silver Water collaborative, an all-female photographic collective. Recent exhibitions include solo exhibition Morant Bay (2020), Movers and Makers (2021) at Prefix ICA and at McMaster Museum of Art (2022) and Dancing in the Light, Museum of Contemporary Art (Fall 2023).

Leslie’s latest project has been to curate and project-coordinate Time and Place, an exhibition of photographic works by 4th year Automation Engineer student at McMaster University and this year’s winner of the McMaster Black Formal Photography Prize, Emmanuel Aduwari. This exhibition is being presented in the M(M)A Education Gallery from June 15 – July 21, 2023 and the prize was presented by McMaster Black Formal, affiliated with the McMaster Black History Month Committee.

Leslie and Jacobs-Blum are working with the M(M)A’s Adjunct Senior Curator Betty Julian to develop their skills. Both mentees will be participating in the research, curatorial development, and upcoming programming surrounding the museum’s major collection exhibition Chasm.

About the BIPOC Curatorial Mentorship Program

Since 2020, the McMaster Museum of Art annually hosts a BIPOC Curatorial Mentorship Program wherein two mentees per year are employed at the Museum with the intention of building capacity for transformation in the cultural sector. This diversity-focused and networking program for emerging Black and Indigenous curators is meant to amplify and elevate their shared perspectives in the Canadian visual arts sector and accelerate their transition into arts leadership positions in this country. The Program has been supported by McMaster University and the Canada Council for the Arts. In its 2022 iteration, the Program is supported by funds from the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Office of the Provost, McMaster University.