Here to Stay: Collage Workshop

What does it mean to take up space? How is space created, who is allowed to occupy it, and in what ways?

As part of Here to Stay, we are pleased to present a hands-on collage workshop allowing community members to deeply engage with the themes of the exhibition, and consider how Black Canadians have, and continue to take up space.

Utilizing archival material, multidisciplinary artist Emkay Adjei-Manu will guide participants in creating a collage that looks at Black Canadian History, community memory, and visual storytelling. This workshop aims to provide participants in a tactile experience while cultivating a deeper understanding of Black Canadian history, cultural place-making and identity.

This workshop will take place at TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King Street West. Please note, space in this workshop is limited.

Image courtesy of Toronto Public Library Digital Archives

About the Facilitator

Emkay Adjei-Manu (b. 1996) is an emerging multidisciplinary artist. They work primarily through analogue-collage. Their work is concerned with the function and form of visual storytelling as it relates to embodiment, myth, memory, and sound. Through their collage practice, they create narrative-based collage as a mode of image-making and storytelling. They source mass produced archival images to illustrate personal and collective narratives that address themes concerned with the social, spiritual, and systemic conditions of Black life. Their work has been exhibited by Ken Steiling Waterloo Museum, Factory Media Centre, Nia Centre for the Arts, McMaster Museum of Art, Xpace Cultural Centre, and published in Black Canadian print magazines such as PITCH magazine and 1919 MAG. They were selected as an RBC x The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery emerging artist, and a YTB Gallery Artist Fellow. More recently, their practice has led them to explore storytelling through experimental film-making.”