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As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic
Samuel Fosso, '70s Lifestyle, 1975–78.
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy JM.PATRAS/PARIS.

As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic

Raphael Albert » Henry Clay Anderson » James Barnor » Dawoud Bey » Arielle Bobb-Willis » Deanna Bowen » Jody Brand » Kwame Brathwaite » Sandra Brewster » Elliott Jerome Brown » Vanley Burke » Mohamed Camara » Kennedi Carter » Jorian Charlton » Michele Pearson Clarke » Renee Cox » Erika DeFreitas » Jabulani Dhlamini » Stan Douglas » Lou (Louis) Draper » Rotimi Fani-Kayode » Samuel Fosso » LaToya Ruby Frazier » Barkley L. Hendricks » Leslie Hewitt » Texas Isaiah » Alison Jackson » Rashid Johnson » Liz Johnson Artur » Anique Jordan » Seydou Keïta » Lebohang Kganye » Luther Konadu » Deana Lawson » Zun Lee » Oumar Ly » Dennis Morris » Aïda Muluneh » Eustaquio Neves » Jamal Nxedlana » Lakin Ogunbanwo » J. D. 'Okhai Ojeikere » Bidemi Oloyede » Horace Ové » Gordon Parks » Dawit L. Petros » Ruddy Roye » Athi-Patra Ruga » Abderramane Sakaly » Jamel Shabazz » Abdo Shanan » Malick Sidibé » Xaviera Simmons » Ming Smith » Paul Anthony Smith » Sanlé Sory » Eve Tagny » Hank Willis Thomas » Mickalene Thomas » James Van Der Zee » Nontsikelelo "Lolo" Veleko » Ricky Weaver » Carrie Mae Weems » Kehinde Wiley »

Exhibition: 24 Feb – 21 May 2023

The Polygon Gallery

101 Carrie Cates Court
BC V7M 3J4 North Vancouver

604-986 1351


thepolygon.ca

Tue-Sun 10-17

As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic
Jamel Shabazz, Rude Boy, Brooklyn, New York, 1982
chromogenic print. Courtesy of Jamel Shabazz.

The ethos of community is at the heart of the collection from which this exhibition is drawn. Established by Dr. Kenneth Montague, the Wedge Collection is Canada’s largest privately owned collection committed to championing Black artists. The title As We Rise is borrowed from a phrase that Dr. Montague’s father would often invoke: “Lifting as we rise.” By this, he emphasized the importance of parlaying one’s personal success into communal good. He believed in investing back in the Black community to which he and his family belonged. As an ethic, “lifting as we rise” suggests an expanded sense of family, one that reaches beyond close relatives. As an exhibition, As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic embraces this expansive sensibility, centering the familial alongside the familiar.

Familiarity resides not just in the exhibition collectively, but in the photographs unto themselves. Black subjects are depicted by Black photographers, presented as they wish to be seen. Largely, these subjects are aware of the camera, and yet they never seem rigid or unnatural. The gaze is mutual and consensual. But the imagery produced is far from uniform. It is as varied, surprising, and heterogeneous as the Black Atlantic itself. Like a family album, it is idiosyncratic.

The concepts of community, identity, and power intersect and merge, discernable in many of the photographs not as features to be singled out but rather as a recognizable essence; a recognition of the complex strength, beauty, vulnerability, and irreducibility of Black life.

As Liz Ikiriko writes: “The pictures here forefront the experience of Black life, in all its myriad forms: a marker of the histories and spaces (real and ephemeral) that transcend geographic boundaries. . . . The collection extends out to a global diaspora and proclaims, ‘We are home.’”

The Wedge Collection was started in 1997 in Toronto by Dr. Kenneth Montague to acquire and exhibit art that explores Black identity. Montague also founded Wedge Curatorial Projects, a nonprofit arts organization that supports emerging Black artists.