With Opened Mouths podcast and Black Portraiture[s] conference

Agnes reverberates in between various digital platforms this fall with the With Opened Mouths podcast and the first Canadian Black Portraiture[s] conference. Connect with artists, writers, curators, researchers, cultural workers and academics from anywhere.

Agnes podcast: With Opened Mouths
In With Opened Mouths: The Podcast, Qanita Lilla, Associate Curator, Arts of Africa sits down with artists, musicians, curators and spoken word poets to discuss the expression of their practice. 

Reflecting Agnes’s new curatorial approach of working along a continuum of exhibitions and programs, the podcast is mobilizing a range of guests including artist Oluseye, rapper Jameel3DN, spoken word poet Britta B, Métis artists and curators Jessie Ray Short and Amy Malbeuf, curator Jason Cyrus and writer Ezi Odozor, and Agnes’s Associate Curator, Indigenous Care and Relations Sebastian De Line and Collections Manager Jennifer Nicoll. The first three episodes are streaming with four more rolling out in the coming months.

The podcast series features original music by Jameel3DN, produced by Elroy “EC3” Cox III and commissioned by Agnes, 2021.

With Opened Mouths: The Podcast is available at Digital AGNES, CFRC’s website, and on popular podcasting platforms like Apple, Google and Spotify. Be sure to subscribe now.

With Opened Mouths, the exhibition is on view August 6, 2021–January 30, 2022.

Produced in partnership with CFRC 101.9 FM and supported by the Justin and Elisabeth Lang Fund and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

Agnes hosts BLACK PORTRAITURE[S]: Absent/ed Presence
Online, October 14–16, 2021 
Register here.

Agnes is thrilled to host the Canadian debut of the BLACK PORTRAITURE[S] conference Absent/ed Presence. Led by Wedge Curatorial Projects, Toronto, the conference invites artists, researchers, and scholars to explore Blackness as absent/ed presence in art, art history, performance, archives, museums, cultural production and technology. Presenters consider Blackness as unfixed, ungeographic, invisible and hypervisible, opaque, local and global.

The keynote lecture features M. NourbeSe Philip and is hosted by the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto on Wednesday, October 13 at 1pm. Register for the Keynote.

With breakout sessions, curated by Nasrin Himada, Agnes’s Associate Curator of Academic Outreach and Community Engagement:

Thursday, October 14, 6pm EDT
Distances: DJ set by Chukwudubem Ukaigwe followed by a conversation with Akosua Adasi
Art History scholar and writer, Akosua Adasi, will lead a conversation with Winnipeg-based artist, curator, writer, and DJ Chukwudubem Ukaigwe that will highlight his interdisciplinary practice, specifically his interest in sound and composition. 

Friday, October 15, 12:30pm EDT
The real story is what’s in that room: Onyeka Igwe in conversation with Nasrin Himada and Milka Njoroge (co-presented with Mercer Union)
This event contextualizes key themes running through Onyeka Igwe’s work and the artist’s forthcoming solo exhibition at Mercer Union, Toronto: The real story is what’s in that room, on view from November 6, 2021–February 26, 2022. 

Saturday, October 16, 12:30pm EDT
Rooting Histories, Rising Futures: community meet-up for Black students facilitated by Fatou Tounkara (co-presented with Union Gallery at Queen’s University, Kingston)
This gathering is a space for Black students to recollect their shared histories of the Black diaspora, and to inspire and envision collective futures. Whilst reflecting on the Black Portraitures conference, participants are invited to discuss their own ideas, experience, vision and imaginings.

Saturday, October 16, 6pm EDT
Gestures on Portrayal: Luther Konadu in conversation with Nasrin Himada (co-presented with SBC Contemporary Art Gallery)
In anticipation of Konadu’s solo exhibition at SBC Contemporary Art Gallery in Montreal, this event highlights the artist’s larger body of work and the themes explored through his lens-based practice. Gestures on Portrayal will be on view November 4–December 18, 2021.

If you have questions on the registration process, or anything else conference-related, email info.blackportraituresto [​at​] gmail.com.

Support from NYU IAAA/CBVC, NYU Tisch Photography & Imaging, Toronto Arts Council, The Ford Foundation, Inclusive Community Fund at Queen’s University and The Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.