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. How did they find their artistic voice? Which life events shaped them and who are their inspirations?

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 currently 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 Etherington Art Centre, 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 to stay up to date.

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

Produced in partnership with CFRC 101.9 FM. This Podcast series is 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, 14–16 October 2021
Registration has opened

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, while asking: What is the role of abstraction in representation? What are the opportunities and limits in logics of representation? How can we, as thinkers and artists, realize new ways of seeing and what can be found therein? What is the current state of Black creative labour? What are methods for attending to that which the archive absents? What can be learned from all that evades archival capture? How might we imagine Blackness into and out of art’s past, present, and future?

See a list of our 60+ presenters.

The Keynote Lecture features M. NourbeSe Philip and is hosted by the Art Gallery of Ontario on Wednesday, 13 October at 1 pm. Following the keynote, M. NourbeSe Philip will be in conversation with DJ and curator Mark Campbell. Register for the Keynote.

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

Thursday, 14 October, 6 pm EDT
Distances
DJ set by Chukwudubem Ukaigwe followed by a conversation with Akosua Adasi

Friday, 15 October, 12:30 pm 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)

Saturday, 16 October, 12:30 pm EDT
Rooting History, Rising Futures
Community Meet-Up for Black students facilitated by Fatou Tounkara
(co-presented with Union Gallery)

Saturday, 16 October, 6 pm EDT
Gestures on Portrayal
Luther Konadu in conversation with Nasrin Himada
(co-presented with SBC Gallery)

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

Support from NYU IAAA/CBVC, NYU Tisch Photography & Imaging, Toronto Arts Council and The Ford Foundation.

Agnes Etherington Art Centre
Situated on traditional Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee Territory, Agnes is a curatorially-driven and research-intensive professional art centre that proudly serves a dual mandate as a leading, internationally recognized public art gallery and as an active pedagogical resource at Queen’s University. By commissioning, researching, collecting and preserving works of art and by exhibiting and interpreting visual culture through an intersectional lens, Agnes creates opportunities for participation and exchange across communities, cultures, histories and geographies.

Agnes is committed to anti-racism. We work to eradicate institutional biases and develop accountable programs that support and centre the artistic expression and lived experience of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour.

36 University Avenue
Kingston, ON K7L 3N6
agnes.queensu.ca
Facebook: @aeartcentre
Twitter: @aeartcentre
Instagram: @aeartcentre

Agnes is an accessible venue, details can be found here.

AGNES THANKS Queen’s University, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario, the City of Kingston Arts Fund, Kingston Arts Council, and through generous contributions by foundations, corporate partners, donors and members.

Images:
1) Portrait of Qanita Lilla and With Opened Mouths podcast covers featuring, left to right: Britta B, Oluseye, Ezi Odozor and Jason Cyrus, Jameel3DN, Sebastian De Line, Oluseye, Jessie Ray Short and Amy Malbeuf.

2) Sandra Brewster, Blur 4, 2019, photo-based gel transfer. Agnes Etherington Art
Centre. Purchase, Chancellor Richardson Memorial Fund, 2020

For further information, contact Kate Yüksel, Communications Coordinator at kate.yuksel@queensu.ca.