Critical Distance DIRECTORY Liz Ikiriko

Liz Ikiriko is a Tkaronto/Toronto-based, Nigerian Canadian artist and curator. Her role as an educator, maker, and mother informs her practice, which focuses on African and diasporic narratives. Prioritizing collaborative engagement, she supports and creates embodied experiences to facilitate moments of vulnerability and care for her communities. Her projects and curiosities question, uncover and confront internalized systems of oppression. 

Ikiriko holds an MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University (2019). Her work has been shown nationally, and is part of the permanent collection of the Dunlop Art Gallery. Her writing has been published in Aperture, Public Journal, MICE Magazine, C Magazine, Blackflash, and Akimbo. Ikiriko’s most recent curatorial projects include: Is Love a Synonym for Abolition? (Gallery 44, 2021),  The Break, The Wake, The Hold, The Breath (Circuit Gallery/Prefix ICA, 2019), An Archive But Not An Atlas (Critical Distance Centre for Curators, 2019), and ___a lineage of transgression___ (ArtSpace Peterborough, 2019). She currently is the co-curator of Bamako Encounters 2021 Photography Biennale in Mali, West Africa and is the Curator of Collections and Contemporary Engagement at the Art Gallery of York University.

Image Caption: Flags of Unsung Countries, 2019, Photography and Cyanotype on cotton, calabash and brick installation, Artist, Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba.