Mimi Cherono Ng’ok, Chebet and Chimu in the Garden, from the series The Other Country, 2008–ongoing (printed 2018), inkjet print © The artist. Courtesy of the artist and The Walther Collection

Curators in Conversation: Sandrine Colard with Julie Crooks

Ryerson Image Centre
33 Gould Street, Toronto
Wednesday, September 25, 7 pm

Join Sandrine Colard, guest curator of The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture, and Julie Crooks, Associate Curator at the AGO, for a conversation about the making of the RIC exhibition, which celebrates the viewpoints of women in African photography from the nineteenth-century to today. Admission is free; please arrive early as seating is provided on a first-come, first-served basis.

Sandrine Colard is an art historian, writer and curator based in New York, United States, and Brussels, Belgium. A specialist of modern and contemporary African arts (PhD Columbia University), Colard is a professor at Rutgers University-Newark, United States, and has been appointed Artistic Director of the 6th Lubumbashi Biennale 2019, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Colard is working on her book about the history of photography in the DRC (awarded 2019–2020 Ford Foundation Fellowship).

Julie Crooks is Associate Curator, Photography at the AGO. Crooks received her PhD in the Department of History of Art and Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, England, where her research focused on historical photography in Sierra Leone, West Africa and the diaspora. She has curated and co-curated a number of exhibitions in Toronto, including Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noires at the AGO (2018-2019).

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture.
Photographs from The Walther Collection
Drawn from the extraordinary holdings of The Walther Collection, The Way She Looks revisits the history of African photographic portraiture through the perspectives of women, both as sitters and photographers. Spanning the beginnings of colonial photography on the continent to the present day, the exhibition features contemporary works by female artists, including Yto Barrada, Jodi Bieber, Lebohang Kganye, Zanele Muholi, Grace Ndiritu, and Nontsikelelo “Lolo” Veleko alongside 1950s studio portraits by such important historical figures as Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta, and nineteenth-century prints, cartes de visite, postcards, and albums. The Way She Looks is organized in collaboration with The Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm, Germany and New York, USA. The exhibition is generously supported by the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, the Toronto Star, The Walrus, ByBlacks.com, The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, and Allan Slaight and Emmanuelle Gattuso.

The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture. Photographs from The Walther Collection (opening night), 2019 © Clifton Li, Ryerson Image Centre

UPCOMING EVENTS, TALKS AND TOURS

Wednesday, September 25, 7 pm
Curators in Conversation: Sandrine Colard with Julie Crooks

Wednesday, October 9, 6 pm
Special exhibition tour of The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture with Gaëlle Morel and Marieme Lo

Thursday, October 24, 12 pm
Bombs, Beaches, Bunkers: Looking at Life in a Nuclear Mode, 1945–1990
Noon Time Collection Talk with Philippe Depairon
Peter Higdon Research Centre, 122 Bond Street, Toronto, RIC–241 (second floor)

Wednesday, October 30, 6–8 pm
Student Gallery Opening Party for Grayson James: After Alexandria

Wednesday, November 13, 6 pm
Special exhibition tour of The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture with Gaëlle Morel and Michèle Pearson Clarke

Thursday, November 21, 12 pm
Boys in Dresses and Other Fashions of the Victorian Age
Noon Time Collection Talk with Ingrid Mida
Peter Higdon Research Centre, 122 Bond Street, Toronto, RIC–241 (second floor)

Wednesday, November 27, 7 pm
Tanenbaum Lecture with Syrus Marcus Ware
Ryerson University School of Image Arts, 122 Bond Street, Toronto, IMA-307 (third floor)

Wednesday, December 4, 6 pm
Special exhibition tour of The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture with Gaëlle Morel and Kenneth Montague

All events take place at the Ryerson Image Centre (33 Gould Street) unless otherwise noted.

ALSO ON VIEW:

Syrus Marcus Ware: Ancestors, Can You Read Us? (Dispatches From The Future)
Toronto-based artist Syrus Marcus Ware imagines a world where racialized people have survived the “Black death spectacle” writ large on the nightly news; survived the catastrophic impact of the Anthropocene; and survived the crushing effects of white supremacy. Commissioned by the Toronto Biennial of Art and the RIC, the artist draws on the shared language of speculative fiction and political activism to transform the Salah J. Bachir New Media Wall into a portal through which the next generation of racialized activists communicate with us, their ancestors, and offer us insights into the future.

Lucy Lu: Da Pi Yuan
In Da Pi Yuan, artist Lucy Lu explores the complexities of growing up with a mixed identity. Returning to her childhood home in Xi’an, China, to the gated apartment community where her grandparents still live, Lu documents the places and people that have remained vivid in her memories in order to understand what it means to be Chinese-Canadian. Through images and words, Da Pi Yuan examines notions of home, belonging, and the fragmented nature of memory.

Ryerson Image Centre
33 Gould Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

ADMISSION IS ALWAYS FREE
Free exhibition tours daily at 2:30pm

ryersonimagecentre.ca
416-979-5164
ric@ryerson.ca
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Media Contact
Kristen Dobbin, Ryerson Image Centre, kristendobbin@ryerson.ca / T+416 979 5000 x7032