BY: York university
Enter the northeast wing of The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery of York University and the viewer is confronted by a towering, two-storey sculpture: a black, metal-clad object resembling a tree. From its geometric trunk, hard-edged branches extend tall into the gallery’s rafters. The work by Jamaican-born and Victoria, B.C.-based multidisciplinary artist Charles Campbell references an ancient mango tree in the village of Accompong — a site of liberation and gathering. Inverted, the sculpture resembles the pulmonary arteries of the lung. The work is part of the exhibition An Ocean to Livity, on view until April 26.
On the walls hang Campbell’s Black Breath Portraits, backlit spectrograms colourfully rendering the idiosyncrasies of each subject’s breath. In the southeast wing of the butterfly-shaped Goldfarb Gallery, viewers enter a darkened room where audio from Campbell’s Black Breath Archive plays. This recorded archive grew from a performance at the Vancouver Art Gallery during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement. Focused on bringing Black life into galleries through breath, Campbell had 20 Black artists and curators roam the space, disseminating the sound of their breath through speakers.
“For each iteration of this exhibition, Campbell works with community organizations to host intergenerational gatherings and facilitate breath recording sessions,” says Felicia Mings, curator for The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery, whose practice focuses on interpreting and presenting modern and contemporary art with an emphasis on artists from Africa and the Caribbean, as well as diasporic artists. For this expanded iteration of An Ocean to Livity, Campbell collaborated with the Afrosonic Innovation Lab, York University’s Making and Media Creation Lab, local poets David Delisca and Joshua “Scribe” Watkis, and emerging sound artist Chibuzor Igwilo to facilitate a new iteration of breath recordings.
On Thursday, Feb. 27 at 7 p.m., David Delisca and Joshua “Scribe” Watkis will present newly commissioned poetry at The Goldfarb Gallery followed by DJ Grumps spinning hip hop and reggae tunes in response to their experience facilitating breath recordings. The event is free and open to the public, however, registration is required.
Also curated by Mings is Maryam Taghavi’s Unfolding Worlds, the first institutional solo exhibition in Canada by the Tehran-born, Iranian-Canadian artist and educator. Located in the southwest wing of the Goldfarb, the exhibition features recent paintings, sculptures and an architectural installation by the Chicago-based artist.
In her practice, Taghavi is motivated by the unseen. She explores this concept through letter forms, particularly Islamic calligraphy, which expresses a reverence for the spiritual and a connection to the divine. Much of the work in Unfolding Worlds derives from an interest in the noghte, which serves as a unit of measurement in calligraphy. Represented by a diamond-shaped point, this essential diacritical mark in Arabic and Persian script is repeated throughout her work.
In paintings, noghtes delineate horizon lines. These otherworldy vistas are suspended from the ceiling or draped from a wall, unframed, so that the noghtes align, forming a horizon line that traverses the canvases. In Taghavi’s sculptures and installations, noghtes become peepholes to mesmerizing reflections of light. When placed on the gallery’s windows, transparent noghtes reflect ultraviolet light that can be seen by birds, opening up the exhibition to the natural world.
On Saturday, March 15 at 3 p.m. the dancer Andros Zins-Browne will perform a newly developed choreography responding to the exhibition through movement and dance. Registration is also required for this free event.
An Ocean to Livity and Unfolding Worlds are on view until April 26 at the Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery of York University. The striking building was designed by internationally acclaimed architect Siamak Hariri. A dynamic arena for art and community engagement, it features three exhibition spaces and a versatile performance pavilion. The Goldfarb Gallery is a new cultural landmark made possible through a $6-million gift from Joan and Martin Goldfarb, reflecting the couple’s long-standing support for the arts at York University.
Getting to the gallery
The new gallery, located at 83a York Blvd., is a one-storey accessible building metres away from York University Station on Line 1 where there is a Wheel-Trans on the north entrance. For those who drive, there is paid street parking on Fine Arts Rd. or at the Student Services Parking Garage (84 James Gillies St.).
The gallery is open to the public Tuesday to Saturday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is always free.