Billboard on Shaw by Adam Delphine Fawundu

September 27, 2024 - March 27, 2025

Critical Distance is pleased to present artist Adama Delphine Fawundu’s billboard Sea Whispers for Mami Wata at the shore of Guanahani, as part of Burnt Sugar, curated by francesca ekwuyasi 

Find out more
A split image with a serene water reflection beneath a bridge on the left, and a shiny silver material draped over a human figure on the right, who is huddled in a space underneath the bridge and surrounded by concrete columns.

REPORT: Access Working Group

June 22, 2021 - February 15, 2025
an inter-organizational research platform with Critical Distance Centre for Curators, Carleton University Art Gallery, and Tangled Art + Disability With funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, from 2021 to 2023, Critical Distance Centre for Curators (CDCC) initiated and steered an inter-organizational research platform, whose purpose was to advance an understanding of the creative possibilities of accessibility strategies in exhibition-making and live events. In collaboration with our two committed partners, Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG) and Tangled Art + Disability, the Access Working Group (AWG) evolved over the years as a consortium of voices, perspectives, and practices thinking together about access in contemporary art across different organizational structures, curatorial methodologies, and presentation formats. A spirit of invention guided this journey…Find out more

PROGRAM: Turning Tables Art Book / Publication Fair + Show

November 28, 2024 - December 14, 2024

Free and open to the public, TURNING TABLES is a hybrid art book fair + show that will shine a spotlight on over 20 local and international arts publishers and producers of art books, critical arts publications, periodicals, prints, apparel, editions, multiples, and more — just in time for the 2024 holiday season.

With this pilot initiative, Critical Distance seeks to connect publishers from across Canada and the world with Toronto-based publics and colleagues interested in critical, artful, affordable, and unusual art books, publications, and editions. Subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on Instagram, or visit our website for more information on our publishing-related activities, past, present, and future, including new additions to our Curators Library, e-Shop, and expanded publications-based programs.

Find out more
A woman with dark brown skin is shown from the hips up standing on a beach in front of rolling ocean waves. She wears a white bodysuit with bloused sleeves, her hands placed over heart and abdomen, and her face is obscured by a covering beaded in cowrie shells.

EXHIBITION: Burnt Sugar

September 27, 2024 - November 16, 2024

Critical Distance is pleased to present Burnt Sugar, curated by noted author francesca ekwuyasi and featuring new and recent works by Adama Delphine Fawundu, Shaya Ishaq, Bushra Junaid, Kosisochukwu Nnebe, and Oluseye. Drawing upon the artists’ longstanding engagement with themes of migration, identity, Blackness, and diaspora, Burnt Sugar explores the inextricable connections between labour, extraction and sugar production including the transatlantic slave trade and its afterlives.

Find out more
A close-up image of a man's hands, dressed in a suit, holding two black-and-white photographs. He is standing at a dimly lit bar with a half-full glass of white wine on the left side of the frame. The lighting creates a warm, reflective glow on the glass and table, adding a nostalgic and intimate atmosphere to the scene. One photograph shows two men, one seated and one standing, being photographed by a third man next to a camera on a tripod. The other image captures a group of people standing in front of a 1930s-era car.

EVENT: Artist Talk by Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn

September 13, 2024 - September 13, 2024

Critical Distance is pleased to present visiting artist Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn in partnership with York University. Drawing from the artist’s interdisciplinary PhD research, the talk will focus on Nguyễn’s film in progress, Visions in the Dark (working title). Set in early 20th-century Indochina and Paris, the film imagines the life of Khánh Ký (1885-1946), an aspiring Vietnamese photographer whose rise through the social ranks—documenting both anthropometric portraits and the colonial elites—reflects the tensions between ambition and a deep-seated desire for national liberation.

Find out more