TORONTO.- The Royal Ontario Museum announces the ROM-original exhibition Here We Are Here: Black Canadian Contemporary Art. Opening Saturday, January 27, 2018, the exhibition, which features the works of nine artists, explores contemporary art, race and historical identity in Canada.

“Here We Are Here: Black Canadian Contemporary Art is an important exhibition that grapples with current and historical interpretations of Black culture and identity in this country,” says Josh Basseches, the ROM’s Director and CEO. “The work represented in this exhibition not only encourages visitors to reexamine their idea of what Canada is, but offers a broader telling of the Canadian story through the Black Canadian experience.”

The exhibition features original work from Canadian artists Sandra Brewster, Michèle Pearson Clarke Chantal Gibson, Sylvia D. Hamilton, Bushra Junaid, Charmaine Lurch, Esmaa Mohamoud, Dawit L. Petros, and Gordon Shadrach. This collaborative project was led by curatorial experts Dr. Silvia Forni, ROM Curator of African Arts and Culture; Dr. Julie Crooks, Assistant Curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO); and independent curator, Dominique Fontaine. Once the curatorial vision for the exhibition was conceived, the curators and artists worked together to establish the overarching themes, and build a conceptual framework and format for the artists to tell their stories.

Joint curatorial statement from Dr. Silvia Forni, Dr. Julie Crooks, and Dominique Fontaine: “Here We Are Here: Black Canadian Contemporary Art affirms both the longstanding and current relevance of Blackness to the overall fabric of Canada. Contemporary art offers us a particular vantage point from where to reflect on longstanding issues of race, exclusion and belonging. This exhibition defies a singular narrative; it shifts paradigms, and calls attention to its structure as a field of enquiry that encourages us to unlearn and learn more about history, art history and how we curate contemporary art shows in the Canadian context.”