Critical Distance PROGRAMMING EXHIBITION: this bridge between starshine and clay

Featuring works by Renee Gladman, Adee Roberson, and Rashid Zakat
Curated by Safia Siad

Critical Distance is pleased to present this bridge between starshine and clay, an exhibition that explores and illuminates sonic innovations and architectures that create and hold space for Black aliveness. Using Lucille Clifton’s won’t you celebrate with me as a poetic entry point, this collection of work across mediums weaves through themes of geography, movement, rhythm, (un)knowing, vibration, and sound. Bringing together new works by  artists Renee Gladman, Adee Roberson, and Rashid Zakat, the concept of musical bridge becomes literal, creating portals and possibilities.

A public art billboard by artist Adee Roberson will be on view at 180 Shaw Street throughout the run of the exhibition. 

This exhibition was developed through the Ways of Attuning curatorial study group facilitated by WaveForm Collective (Liz Ikiriko and Toleen Touq).

Events
Please join us on the evening of Friday, October 13th for the opening reception at Critical Distance Centre for Curators. Promptly following the opening remarks at 6:00 pm, artist Adee Roberson will present an activation and performance in the gallery channeling oceanic and cosmic sounds through synthesizer, percussion and voice. 

At 6:30 pm, artist Rashid Zakat will perform in the Urbanspace Gallery just around the corner from the gallery. Using two turntables and a mixer, Zakat live-edits an archive of personal and public films, found footage and animation to produce a spontaneous and thoughtful audio-visual narrative. Part dance party, part live video art performance, Revival! is a celebration of the visual and sonic frequencies that are contained within and spill out of Black ecstatic experiences. These images and sounds marry and multiply to tell textured stories of African cultural retention, the relationship between survival and faith, and the collective creative strategies of adaptation, joy, and mutual aid embedded in Black life and history in the Americas.

ASL interpretation and a Deaf performance will feature alongside the Revival! performance from artist Rashid Zakat.

Thank you to our funders

this bridge between starshine and clay is made possible through the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Critical Distance gratefully acknowledges funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

Image: Adee Roberson, Never Run Away (Black Harmony), 2023, Screenprint on paper. Courtesy of the artist.