Opening Reception: Saturday September 21, 2-4PM
Artist in attendance

Artist Talk: Saturday September 21, 1PM
Join us for a casual walkthrough of the exhibition with artist Tyshan Wright.
This event is programmed as part of Gallery Weekend Toronto, with extended gallery hours throughout the weekend.

In GUMBE, Wright uses wood sourced from Jamaica, Nova Scotia, and the African diaspora to construct a selection of square gumbe drums, a ceremonial instrument the Maroons were denied in exile. Adorned by beads collected from the forests of Maroon Town, Jamaica, these drums act as diasporic talismans, capable of transporting material and spiritual culture through time and space. Accompanying these sculptural objects are a series of erasure texts in which Wright redacts letters written by Sir John Wentworth, appropriating and recontextualizing colonial language to tease new connections between migration, labour, freedom, settlement, history, and ancestry. Taken together, this suite of new works follows the movement of the Jamaican Maroons from the past into the present, tracing a cycle of displacement and resistance across the globe. 

(Text: Zaluky Contemporary)

GUMBE IX, 2024, wood (Ebony, Padauk), deer skin, Maroon beads, leather cord, 12 x 15 x 15 inches.
📸: Steve Farmer