Featuring a solo exhibition by Anique Jordan alongside a group photography exhibition with works by Joi T. Arcand, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Anique Jordan, Esmaa Mohamoud, John Reeves, and Katherine Takpannie.

Anique Jordan, Flight Pattern 3, 2026. Photograph. Courtesy of the artist.

I Think This Means I Can Fly

Featuring works by Anique Jordan
Curated by Essence Harden
September 26 – December 20, 2026
Opening Reception: September 26, 2026, 2 – 4pm

In I Think This Means I Can Fly, Anique Jordan considers how truth is made, inherited, and given form. Working across photography, sculpture, and performance, she unsettles the boundary between visual evidence and belief. Jordan asks what becomes possible when ancestral narratives, dreams, and spiritual knowledge are approached as truth-telling systems.

The exhibition grows from Jordan’s research into the Flying Africans, stories of enslaved people who escaped bondage by taking flight, and connections between Gullah Geechee communities of the Carolinas and her family history in Trinidad. These inheritances lead Jordan to question the visual languages through which Truth acquires authority. In the works on view, glitches, shadows, blurs, and disjointed bodies unsettle photography’s promise of visual certainty, closed systems, and stable form. Monumental gridded photographs borrow the structure of devotional displays, inviting us to move between individual scenes and an unstable whole. Four double-sided light boxes create shifting relationships among images and the stories they suggest.

Jordan invites us into a world governed by other rules, where history may be dreamed and remembered, belief becomes material, and the marvelous offers its own account of what happened.

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Joi T. Arcand, namoya kâ-ocawâsimisicik okâwisak, #1 Joi’s Terrible Idea, 2025. Pigment ink on cotton rag, 139.7 cm × 101.6 cm. Purchase by the Varley-McKay Art Foundation of Markham with funds from the K. M. Hunter Foundation, 2026. Courtesy of the artist.

Framing Identity

Featuring works by Joi T. Arcand, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Anique Jordan, Esmaa Mohamoud, John Reeves, and Katherine Takpannie
Curated by Anik Glaude
September 26 – December 20, 2026
Opening Reception: September 26, 2026, 2 – 4pm

Curated as a companion to I Think This Means I Can Fly in the Main Gallery, Framing Identity features photographic works from the collections of both the Varley Art Gallery of Markham and Markham Public Art.

Bringing together diverse photographic practices, the exhibition examines the ways individuals and communities construct, negotiate, and assert identity. Through portraiture, documentary photography, and conceptual approaches, the artists offer nuanced reflections on memory, belonging, resilience, and representation.

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Associated Programs

Fall Exhibitions Opening Reception
Saturday, September 26 | 2 – 4pm
Free | Registration not required

Celebrate the opening of our fall exhibitions with Caribbean cuisine, an artist talk with Anique Jordan, and hands-on art-making. The afternoon also features Desires Are Needs by Farhia Tato, an improvisational poetry and sound work exploring history and memory across time.

Flight
Sunday, September 27 – Tuesday, September 29
Free | Registration not required

Over approximately 72 hours, Anique Jordan inhabits the gallery, moving through unscripted periods of rest, sleep, and travel. Informed by the Shouter Baptist spiritual practice of “moaning,” which involves extended fasting, Flight similarly turns to dreams and bodily experience as sources of knowledge. Jordan asks the gallery to bend to these ways of knowing, allowing her experience to shape the institution’s rhythms and its use of space and time. For 72 hours, visitors are welcome to enter the gallery at any time, including overnight.

Lunch and Learn with artist Anique Jordan and curator Essence Harden
Thursday, October 1 | 12:30 – 1:30pm
Free | Online | Registration required

Join the exhibiting artist and curator for a conversation about Jordan’s practice, process, and exhibition, offering insight into its key themes, ideas, and curatorial perspective.

Study Hall Sessions
Saturdays, October 17 and November 14 | 2pm
Free | Registration not required

As part of I Think This Means I Can Fly, Study Hall invites participants to explore mythology, movement, refusal, and dreaming through shared readings, films, discussion, and embodied practice. Monthly gatherings are hosted by Evelyn Amponsah, Tender Possibilities, and Anique Jordan.

Art Bus
Saturday, October 24 | 10:30am – 3:30pm
Free | Registration required

Spend a day exploring exhibitions across the GTA through guided visits and conversation, with stops at the Aga Khan Museum, Varley Art Gallery, and Doris McCarthy Gallery.

Curator’s Corner
Saturday, November 21 | 2pm
Free | Registration recommended

What stories can be found within the Varley Art Gallery’s permanent collection? Join the Varley’s curator Anik Glaude for an informal walkthrough exploring the artworks on view and the artists, ideas, and histories that shape the exhibition.

About the Varley Art Gallery of Markham

The Varley Art Gallery of Markham is a vital cultural hub for artists and diverse communities. A municipal gallery, we create meaningful conversations about Canadian art and society. We inspire local and regional audiences to engage with art through outstanding exhibitions and rich public and educational programs relevant to the communities we serve. We support artists from York region and seek to broaden access to the arts for diverse artists and cultural groups. We also share and celebrate the life and work of F. H. Varley, a founding member of the Group of Seven.

The Varley Art Gallery is situated on the traditional territories of Indigenous Peoples including the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe. We are committed to reconciliation, partnership and enhanced understanding.

Varley Art Gallery of Markham
216 Main Street Unionville
Markham, ON, L3R 2H1
varley@markham.ca
905.477.7000 ext. 3261

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Public Hours
Tuesday to Friday | 12pm – 4pm
Saturday and Sunday | 10am – 5pm
Monday | Closed

Admission
Free

Accessibility
Our venue is accessible, with automatic door openers to enter the building and exhibition spaces. One accessible washroom is available.

For more information, please contact:
Jessica Li, Communications
jessicali@markham.ca