Digital performance maps sites of Black history in downtown Toronto

Using digital media and performance, York University PhD student and internationally recognized artist Camille Turner will deliver a presentation that maps sites of Black history around Grange Park in downtown Toronto.

“Mapping African Diasporic Memory: Digital Media and Performance” is presented as an event in the Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES) Speaker Series. It runs March 8 from 12:30 to 2:30pm in HNES 140.

Turner is an explorer of race, space, home and belonging. Straddling media, social practice and performance art, her work has been presented throughout Canada and internationally.

Camille Turner FES
Image courtesy of Camille Turner; Miss Canadiana participatory walk

For this event, she will present her research and art projects revealing Black histories in Toronto. She has lectured at various institutions such as the University of Toronto, Algoma University and the Toronto School of Art, and is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art & Design and York University’s Master in Environmental Studies program.

The aim of this year’s speaker series, “Environmental Scholarship, Activisms and the Arts at the Faculty of Environmental Studies,” is to learn and share new approaches for creatively engaging in environmental arts, art practices and art modes of inquiry. The series highlights work by alumni and faculty considering art as sites of knowledge and, in many cases, as forms of activism. Some of the speakers engage communities and challenge injustice; others conduct participatory research, develop new insights into complex problems, and/or build art practices that engage with and respond to the complexity of social, political and environmental concerns.

Previous events in 2018 have included:

Jan. 16 – Cellphilming with Katie MacEntee;
Jan. 30 – Song for the Beloved with Honor Ford-Smith; and
Feb. 5 – Blueberries: Materials, Art and Words with Lisa Myers and Chris Cavanagh.