Presenting works from Toronto’s Wedge Collection new exhibition “Position As Desired: Exploring African Canadian Identity | Photographs from the Wedge Collection”.

Conceived, curated and organised by Toronto-based art collector Kenneth Montague, the show – the first major exhibition to examine the history, movement and experiences of African Canadians through photography – showcases a diverse selection of photographic works from his personal collection. Ranging from vintage portraits of African immigrants to Canada, to contemporary works by established artists, the exhibition at the Wedge Collection aims to instigate conversation surrounding the experiences of African Canadians.

Here, Kenneth Montague shares his personal story about the exhibition and how the Wedge Collection came about:

“My parents emigrated from Jamaica to Canada in the 1950s, arriving well before the great explosion of Caribbean and African immigrants of the subsequent “Pierre Trudeau” years. Born and raised in Windsor, in a neighborhood where we were the only Black family, I felt like an island – the only external signifiers of my black identity came in the form of the visual culture that I mostly experienced on TV and at the movies – and across the border, at cultural institutions such as the Detroit Institute of Arts. There, as a ten-year-old, I first encountered Harlem Renaissance artist James VanDerZee’s bold and sophisticated images of his vibrant New York City neighbourhood, and later, African American masters like Gordon Parks and Roy DeCarava. As a high school student, while working as a volunteer tour guide at the North American Black Historical Museum (now the Amherstburg Freedom Museum) I learned that we, too, have a rich cultural heritage – one that I certainly wasn’t being taught in my Canadian History class.

Years later, I began exploring contemporary art that spoke to me about my own experience. Issues around race, gender, memory, migration, community, and even personal style became important themes in my growing Wedge Collection. From the start, I recognized the importance of creating a space for emerging African Canadian artists – hence the name, and the mission: a deliberate attempt to “wedge” these artists into the mainstream of contemporary art.

“Position As Desired: Exploring African Canadian Identity | Photographs from the Wedge Collection” is the first major exhibition to examine the history, movement and experiences of Black Canadians through contemporary photography. This touring show was co-organized with the Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto) where it first opened in 2010, before travelling to the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 (Halifax) in 2013. It is a collection of photographs, video works and memorabilia from my personal archive – ranging from rare vintage portraits of the first African immigrants to Canada, to contemporary works by established artists. At the Art Gallery of Windsor, there is an expanded section of emerging artists and a specially commissioned video work by the In the Black Canada collective based on a series of interviews with members of Windsor’s black community.

There are many other stories to be told, and my hope is that this small, largely regional, and highly subjective selection of works from the Wedge Collection will promote further discussion concerning how each of us feels about our place in the Canadian landscape.”

Kenneth Montague,
Curator and collector