Black Speculative Arts Movement

Event poster
Friday, October 21, 2016 - 4:00am to Saturday, October 22, 2016 - 4:00am

Black Speculative Arts Movement (BSAM) Toronto 2016 is a two-day community gathering at OCAD University. The event will be focused on a Toronto/ Canadian centred dialogue around the improvement of Black and Afrocentric presence in Speculative and Science Fiction in all creative forms and outlets. The lack of cartoons with Black People as majority or in lead roles, or the lack of character diversity in comic books, novels and films are examples. There will also be a market place with a variety of vendors offering goods and services to encourage supporting local businesses and artists.

$5 Each Day
$10 for a pass

Tickets can be purchased:
eventbrite.ca/e/black-speculative-arts-movement-symposium-bsamtoronto2016-tickets-27314610736

 

DAY 1
Open
ing Night:

The first night of the two-day community gathering which will feature an opening ceremony and speeches and presentations by the founders of BSAM and other prominent artists.
 

Friday, October 21, Auditorium Room 190
6 to 10 p.m.
Public price: $5
Free for OCAD U students with a valid I.D.

 

Featured Discussions and sessions:

  • Studying While Black, moderated by Dr. Audrey Hudson
  • featuring OCADU BIPOCSA (Black Indigenous People of Colour Student Association) - Camille Lauren, Dainesha Nugent-Palache, Graham Ndimenhle Nhlamba, Kikelomo Otuije, Moya K, 
  • Making Space For the Black Imagination (curator and cultural producers)  featuing B.A.N.D. Gallery
  • Black Queer Art Matters

Featuring Artist talks by Ato Sietu (https://www.facebook.com/ato.seitu)
Dr. tobias van veen
Fatimah Tuggar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatimah_Tuggar)

Live performances Kafaye Rose (R & B, Reggae), Major Blaze (Reggae, R& B Alternative Hip-Hop), Chop-Z (future Music) + more

 

DAY 2

The focus of this day is on the different speculative art platforms across Toronto and how community informs the arts practices and vice-versa. This day will feature panels discussions, workshops and activities and live performances

Saturday, October 22, Auditorium Room 190 and Great Hall 230
11.a.m to 6 p.m.

Public price: $5
Free for OCAD U students with a valid I.D.

 

Featured Discussions and sessions:
• Deconstructing the Race Box moderated by Black Future Month

  • The Healing of the Nation (Spiritual art practitioners & mystics) moderated by Sunset Service featuring David Lewis-Peart, Chiedza Pasipanodya, Njeri Campbell + More
  • Comics & Caricatures (Artists, designers, and illustrators) moderated by Sheniece Cater featuring Arthur Tanga, Alecia Doyley, Black Sun Comics, Stacey Robinson of Black Kirby
  • Black Ink: Flipping the script (Authors and Playwrights) moderated by Nay Monroe featuring Adiyana Morris,  Dilcia S. (NYC), Jelani “J-Wyze” Nias, Whitney French
  • Words, Sound, Powah (Music artists & Performance artists) moderated by Sharrae Lyon featuring Watch School Alumni - Najla Nubyanluv, Ohm Shanti, Sashoya Shoya Oy
     

Featuring special artist talk by Ian Sun of Anansi T.E.K. Club (www.anansi-tek.org)
Live performances by Witch Prophet (Experimental Indie) + More

This event is supported by Black Future Month, Lost Lyrics, OCAD U Student Union, Onsite Gallery, OCAD U Faculty of Liberal Art and Science and School of School for Interdisciplinary Studies , Faculty of Art, Faculty of Design,  Art and Social Change, Office of Diversity, Equity & Sustainability Initiatives, Deluxo, PRIYOME Chess Club, Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation & Fantasy of the Toronto Lillian H. Smith Library, Nia Centre For The Arts, Black Artist Network In Dialogue Gallery( B.A.N.D. Gallery), Reaching Intelligent Souls Everywhere Edutainment (R.I.S.E. Edu.), Street Voices, Zero Gun Violence and Rite Of Passage - Woodgreen Community Centre.

 

About BsaM

Black Speculative Arts Movement, aka BSAM, is an annual Afrofuturism, black comics, and arts convention held at multiple colleges and universities throughout the United States.

The Black Speculative Art movement emerged out of the Unveiling Visions exhibition co-curated by John Jennings and Reynaldo Anderson at the Schomburg Center for the Study of Black Culture. Black Speculative Art is a creative aesthetic practice that integrates African diasporic or African metaphysics, science, and technology that seeks to interpret, engage, design or alter reality for the re-imagination of the past, the contested present, and act as a catalyst for the future.” The BSAM convention movement, co-founded by Dr Reynaldo Anderson, at Harris-Stowe State University, and Maia Crown Williams, founder of Midwest Ethnic Convention for Comics and Arts - MECCA, will include vending from a vast amount of comics, art, and artisan creators and vendors, live performances, a full international film festival via Midwest Ethnic Convention for Comics and Arts - MECCA, seminars, classes, hand on workshops, plays, and much more. Students are also welcome to submit proposals to participate as well.

Afrofuturism and astro-blackness have been practiced in our community for years, especially thru literature, visual arts, and music. Artists like Sun Ra, Octavia Butler, Basquiat, Fela Kuti, George Clinton, John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, Samuel Delaney, Jimi Hendrix, Paschal B. Randolph, Toni Morrison, Amiri Baraka, Tananarive Due, and the Zulu Nation are excellent examples.

BSAM is a loose umbrella term represented for different positions or basis of inquiry: Afrofuturism, Astro Blackness, Afro-Surrealism, Ethno Gothic, Black Digital Humanities, Black (Afro-future female or African centered) Science Fiction, The Black Fantastic, Magical Realism, and The Esoteric. Although these positions may be incompatible in some instances they overlap around the term speculative and design; and interact around the nexus of technology and ethics.

BSAM is a continuation of the historical behaviour within the Veil to engage the ideas of Dubois, Wright, Everett and others to pierce the Color Line, the Color Curtain, and understand the Digital Divide in the face of the challenges of the 21st century.

http://blackspeculativeartsmovement.wordpress.com/

https://www.facebook.com/blackspeculativeartsmovement

Tickets can be purchased

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/black-speculative-arts-movement-symposium-bsamtoronto2016-tickets-27314610736

for more info contact Quentin VerCetty at bridginda6ix@gmail.com

 

Venue & Address: 
OCAD University 100 McCaul St.
Event Poster

Black Speculative Arts Movement

SIMON POPE: Visiting Artist coming to the Florence Studio

An arrangement of chairs around a table
Wednesday, March 2, 2016 - 5:00am

MARCH 2  SIMON POPE

Simon Pope’s (b. 1966, Exeter, UK) recent art practice is preoccupied with participatory art's engagement with new materialism and concepts of the more-than-human, asking “who else takes part?” This question formed the basis of his practice-led doctoral study at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford (2012-15). Formerly a member of the Net.Art group I/O/D, he represented Wales at the Venice Biennale in 2003. Pope was a NESTA Fellowship awardee (2002-05), a Reader (tenured-Professor) in Fine Art (2005-10) and is currently an Associate Research Fellow of both Birkbeck and Queen Mary, University of London (2014-) and visiting faculty member and supervisor for Transart Institute's MFA in New York City and Berlin. He currently lives near Castiglione di Garfagnana, researching a new project with his partner, (and OCADU alumna) Sarah Cullen. www.tinyurl.com/simonpope

Venue & Address: 
OCADU Florence Studio
Email: 
lmartinello@faculty.ocadu.ca