WHAT CARRIES US: NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR IN THE BLACK ATLANTIC
Filmed and edited by Brian RicksProduced for the Bonavista Biennale, based on an original project for the exhibition “New-Found-Lands” at Eastern Edge (2016)Collection of the artist
Opened weeks before The Rooms closed due to the pandemic, What Carries Us: Newfoundland and Labrador in the Black Atlantic is a landmark exhibition that brings an African-diasporic perspective to Newfoundland and Labrador’s place in centuries-long global migration and trade relationships.
What Carries Us pivots on Black-British philosopher Paul Gilroy’s concept of “The Black Atlantic” — a term that describes the cultural (and many other) contributions of African-descended peoples to societies on both sides of the Atlantic. Making visible these connections means reckoning with the ways in which this province, like other communities along the Atlantic, was at the crossroads of the movement of ships, goods and enslaved people between Europe, Africa and the Americas, known as the triangle trade. It also means appreciating the enduring influence this transatlantic trade has had on the food, language, culture and traditions of both Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and Caribbean peoples.
Curated by Bushra Junaid, the exhibition is inspired by, and reflects on, British-Ghanaian artist John Akomfrah’s Vertigo Sea (2015) —an epic meditation on the sea and the history of migration, slavery and conflict. What Carries Us includes video, mixed media, mural and photo-based works by Canadian artists Sandra Brewster (Toronto), Shelley Miller (Montreal) and Camille Turner (Toronto), and British artist Sonia Boyce (London, UK), as well as historical items from The Rooms collections.
ABOUT CAMILLE TURNER’S “AFRONAUTIC RESEARCH LAB: NEWFOUNDLAND”
Featured here, Camille Turner’s “Afronautic Research Lab” contemplates nineteen slave ships built in Newfoundland and Labrador from the mid-1700s to mid-1800s by embodying a figure, adorned in white, who has travelled from the future where histories have been faced honestly and openly. This Afro-descendant considers the ballast used to weigh the ships down for their voyage to transport enslaved Africans to the New World. Books, texts, advertisements seeking runaway slaves and other artifacts that reveal Canada’s hidden involvement in slavery are presented in the exhibition space for “What Carries Us.” Visitors are encouraged to adopt the role of researchers at the table, examining what history exists.
