Toronto History Museums Presents: In Conversation with Natalie Wood

Image Credit: Natalie Wood

Toronto History Museums Presents: In Conversation with Natalie Wood

Saturday, February 22, 2025, 4:00 – 5:30pm
Spadina Museum Historic House and Gardens, Toronto

3:45pm Doors Open and Refreshments
4:00pm Discussion
4:45pm Sneak Peek Tour

To celebrate the City of Toronto’s two new art acquisitions from her series, Letters to My Ancestors join artist Natalie Wood in conversation with Toronto History Museum’s director, Karen Carter as they discuss insights, symbolism, and the significance of these pieces with a special viewing of Natalie Wood’s work.

These works are a visual representation of the artist’s search for a connection to her ancestors with the use of cultural elements from the present, contemporary art, and ancestral culture traditions.

About the Artist

Natalie Wood is an award-winning Trinidadian-born, Tkaronto-based visual and media artist. Her multimedia artwork cohabits the areas of popular culture, education, and historical research. Her practice includes painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, video, and performance, and extends into her work as a curator, educator, and community-based Black queer activist. She is presently completing a research creation project for her PhD focused on Black Queer Resistance in the performance of Blue Devil mas at York University.

In the past several years she has exhibited her art in both solo and group shows at national and international venues such as A Space Gallery, the AGO, Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, Paul Petro Contemporary Art, The Plumb, and Aird Gallery; at Art Fairs such as Montreal’s Plural, Toronto International Art Fair, Art Basel Miami; and her videos at Images Festival, Zong! Global, Inside Out, In Your Pocket, Caribbean Tales Film Festival, and Trinidad Film Festival.

Wood is a founder of the Blue Devil Posse, co-conspirator in the Blue Sea Devil Moko Jumbie Mas Camp, co-founder of the Environmental and Urban Change Black Caucus at York University, an inaugural fellow at Black Lives Matter’s Wildseed Centre for Art and Activism, and, as a GBC Professor she is one of the visionaries of the newly launched Black Futures Initiatives.

Selected awards include a SSHRC Grant (2021), Canada Council Creation Grant 2020, several York University, Ontario Graduate Scholarships and Fellowships, the New Pioneers Award for contribution to Arts and Culture 2006, and a NourbeSe Philip Arts recognition grant along with numerous grants and awards from Toronto, Ontario, and Canada Arts Council. She is represented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art.

About Toronto History Museums, Spadina Museum

Spadina Museum, named from an Anishnaabemowin word ishpadina (“highland” or “ridge”), sits atop a ravine overlooking Toronto. Today this dazzling mansion is a portal into the triumphs and tribulations of Toronto from 1900 to the 1930s. Get a glimpse into this era through the perspective of the affluent Austin family and the people who worked in service within their home.

Spadina Museum is one of the Toronto History Museums, which are a collection of 10 historic sites owned and operated by the City of Toronto with the mission to collect, preserve, research, interpret, exhibit, and enhance the understanding of Toronto’s diverse stories through engaging and exciting experiences.

Land Acknowledgement for Toronto

We acknowledge the land we are meeting on is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. We also acknowledge that Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit.

Spadina Museum Historic House and Gardens
285 Spadina Road
Toronto, ON M5R 2V5
spadina@toronto.ca
416 338 3049

Facebook @tohistorymuseums | @paulpetrocontemporaryart
Instagram @iamnataliewood | @paulpetrocanada | @tohistorymuseums

Accessibility: Spadina Museum is partially accessible.
For more information, please email spadina@toronto.ca

Image Descriptions:
1. Photo of a person smiling
2. Image of a painting of a person wearing a yellow dress with a blue background. The artwork is called All I want is to sweeten your tea
3. City of Toronto logo in blue bold letters and Paul Petro Gallery logo in white bold letters and grey background