Curated by Lisa Baldissera, Usha Seejarim and Karen Tam

Open Studios and Performance at Griffin Art Projects: Sunday, September 15, 12:00PM–5:00PM

Opening Reception and Curator/Artist Tour: Friday, September 27, 6:00PM–8:00PM

EXHIBITION: September 28 to December 15, 2024

Common to South Africa and Canada are histories of colonial occupation, separatist policies that purposefully isolated and even eradicated Indigenous people, institutional racism and ongoing marginalization. Despite attempts at land restitution and the implementation of truth and reconciliation commissions in both countries, the scars of respective historical trauma surface in different ways. 

Curated by Lisa Baldissera, Usha Seejarim and Karen Tam, Future Worldings brings Canadian artists Nura Ali (based in Calgary, on the lands of the Blackfoot Confederacy, Tsuut’ina, Îyâxe Nakoda Nations and Métis Nation Region 3), Sun Forest and Xwalacktun (both residing on the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm [Musqueam], Skwxwú7mesh [Squamish] and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh [Tsleil-Waututh] Nations) together with Johannesburg-based South African artists Pebofatso Mokoena, Lebogang Mogul Mabusela and Wezile Harmans to consider approaches of collective and collaborative “worldmaking.” The project concerns itself with how it may be possible to “world” collectively while retaining the specificities of site, body, history, access and cultural understandings.

In 2021, Griffin Art Projects introduced the six artists in Future Worldings to one another in a two-month digital residency during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Formal and informal online meetings initiated a discursive space in which to share practices with one another from their relative positions across the world as they developed their work. In 2024, on the occasion of the Future Worldings project, the artists and curators gathered in person for the first time, engaging in international cultural exchanges through three diverse residency programs in Canada and South Africa at NIROX (Krugersdorp, South Africa), Similkameen Artist Residency (SAR) (Keremeos, BC) and Griffin Art Projects. 

During his five-week residency in South Africa, Xwalacktun visited key Johannesburg sites, including the Constitution Hill Prison and Courthouse, the Credo Mutuwa Cultural Village and the site of Latitudes Art Fair. He met with students from the printmaking centre Artist Proof Studio, with renowned sculptor and conceptual artist Willem Boschof and with eminent South African artist William Kentridge, among other local artists, curators, academics and gallerists. Facilitated by artist Collen Maswanganyi, Xwalacktun also toured the Limpopo region, where he met with Master Carvers Johannes Maswanganyi and Dr Noria Mabasa. At NIROX, Xwalacktun participated in a ten-day woodcarving workshop titled “Carving X Two” alongside artists Dada Khanyisa, Collen Maswanganyi, Johan Moolman, Simon Moshapo Junior, John Nkhoma, Usen Obot and Ben Tuge. This workshop culminated in the exhibition Relief, presented at the Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture from June 29 to September 2, 2024. Relief was produced in partnership with the Kromdraai Impact Hub, NIROX and the Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture.

At SAR and Griffin Art Projects, all six artists took part in a series of cultural exchanges and events, including a visit to En’owkin Centre; Cultural Protocols and Learning on the Land in the Similkameen with Anona Kampe; a visit to kł cp̓əlk̓ stim̓ Hatchery, a salmon restoration project led by the Syilx people; a Decolonization Tour at UBC; and curator-hosted visits to the Museum of Anthropology and the Museum of Vancouver, as well as engagements at other local organizations. Emily Carr University hosted Future Worldings artist visits, presentations and workshops.

These events culminate in the Future Worldings exhibition, which features work created during the residencies, alongside additional works from the artists’ studios and collections, including painting, drawing, sculpture, installation and performance. The artists consider the questions stated in the curatorial thesis for the Future Worldings project: What are the conditions for creating the world? How do we imagine ways of creating a cosmology? What forms of language/terms/collection of understanding might this encompass? Connecting the works of all the artists is the centrality of the body as a site of cultural space and of knowing and receiving the world.