Summer 2026 Exhibitions at Art Windsor-Essex
This summer at AWE, we’re plumbing the depths—under the ocean; deep inside our vaults
Sameer Farooq, If it were possible to collect all navels of the world on the steps to ASCENSION, 2019. Installation view at Dalhousie Art Gallery, 2023. Photo by Steve Farmer.
Sameer Farooq: The Fairest Order in the World
June 18 – September 20, 2026
Opening Party: Thursday, June 18, 2026, 5 – 9pm
Curated by Mona Filip
Cape Breton born, Toronto based artist Sameer Farooq presents a solo exhibition that offers a deeply poetic space to reflect on the fraught and violent histories of art and anthropological museums, their colonial origins, structures, and impulses.
With The Fairest Order in the World, Farooq probes notions of provenance, repatriation, and repair, composing a series of new and recent sculptures and images to articulate unique ideas for repurposing the emptied spaces of museums devoid of their spoils. Mining the possibilities offered by sustained engagement, Farooq invites us to envision what the museum might become through the mechanics of restitution, what it may shift to collect and document, and what kind of experiences it could nurture.
Organized and circulated by Dalhousie Art Gallery.
Racquel Rowe, Breaking the Surface (video still), 2026.
Racquel Rowe: Breaking the Surface
July 16 – September 27, 2026
Opening Party: Thursday, July 16, 5 – 9pm
Curated by T. Bujold-Abu, 2025–2026 TD Curatorial Fellow
Breaking the Surface is an emergent series of reflections—interrogating the infrastructure, tourism, longing, and visual construction of paradise. Artist Racquel Rowe, a Bajan artist currently residing in Canada, begins her process with underwater investigations; tracing the beaches of Barbados and dwelling just below the surface—where the land, sea, and sky blur into abstraction. Through slow observation, distortion, and hyper-saturated imagery, the work imagines the Caribbean outside of a familiar visual narrative, one shaped by consumption, fantasy, and tourism.
Anne Louch, Funny Money (detail), 1970, soft-ground etching on paper, artist’s proof, 41.0 cm x 51.0 cm, Gift of C.A. Louch, 1971.
Ink, Charcoal & Jet
July 16 – September 27, 2026
Opening Party: Thursday, July 16, 5 – 9pm
Curated by T. Bujold-Abu, 2025–2026 TD Curatorial Fellow
Of the 1028 artists represented in the Art Windsor-Essex Collection, seven identify as Black Artists. A total of 0.681% of the collection. Of the approximately 4214 total works in the Art Windsor-Essex Collection, ten works are by Black Artists. A total of 0.24% of the collection. The exhibition Ink, Charcoal & Jet, pulled from the Art Windsor Essex Collection, seeks to locate and foreground Black within the institution; examining absence through presence. By interrogating Blackness as a medium, alike to the title Ink, Charcoal, & Jet—the colour Black is positioned as a central character: an active, contributing voice, speaking from the collection.
About Art Windsor-Essex
Art Windsor-Essex recognizes the Three Fires Confederacy of First Nations, comprised of the Ojibway, the Odawa, and the Potawatomi as the original title holders of the lands we operate on, and Bkejwanong as the home of the Council Fire. We recognize the governing system of the Wampum Treaties; including the Dish with One Spoon Covenant between the Anishnaabe and Haudenosaunee Peoples. We respect the rights of Anishnaabe, Haudenosaunee and allied First Nations in caring for and protecting this territory. We commit to the work of being in good relation to Bkejwanong (Walpole Island First Nation) and Caldwell First Nation.
Art Windsor-Essex
401 Riverside Drive West
Windsor, Ontario N9A 7J1
artwindsoressex.ca
visit@artwindsoressex.ca
519-977-0013
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Accessibility: Art Windsor-Essex is a fully accessible venue. For more information, visit here.
Image Descriptions:
1. A stepped display of mysterious ceramic forms, lit dramatically from above.
2. An image of the sky seen through the surface of water, blurred and abstracted the sky becomes a shapeless form of white and blue.
3. A black rectangle depicts an abstract series of circles in a diamond pattern.
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