Community Responses
As part of our community response series, the Mitchell Art Gallery invited and commissioned Christina Battle, Mpoe Mogale and Ivan Touko to share their feelings and thoughts about It’s About Time, curated by Seika Boye.
It’s About Time (Where was it fun to dance?): a response
Christina Battle, November 2020
“It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900 – 1970 and Now, makes Black culture within Canada more visible: providing evidence of histories and legacies that have always been there despite their deliberate disregard by dominant cultural institutions. Walking through the exhibition feels heavy, but a good kind of heavy—like a weight that is necessary to bear in order to make visible what you always knew was there but couldn’t quite see.”
— Christina Battle
Read the rest of Christina’s response on her website
Erased, Not Forgotten by Mpoe Mogale
“Walking through the It’s About Time exhibition by Dr. Seika Boye at the Mitchell Art Gallery, I was pulled by the names, stories, and even the existence of the dancers. I had never heard of any of these people. I felt embarrassed and angry about that. While I always knew that our generation is certainly not the first Black artists in Canada, the absence of a roadmap and heavy lifting required often makes it feel that this is the case. I had to repeatedly remind myself that this is by design. Erasure is an intentional action. The state that we live within relies heavily on this practice to maintain its image—cloaking past and present injustices with concepts such as multiculturalism and colorblindness that deny the ugly realities of Canada’s interaction with Blackness.
The movement reflected (heard through the sounds and displayed in the video) is based on the photos and stories of the dancers featured in the exhibition. This is to pay homage to these dancers who paved the way for us and whose legacy we are in the constant presence of. While reflecting on what that means for Black dancers today, I was saddened by the reality that we will meet the fate of those before us. But perhaps this is not an entirely sad destiny. To leave a legacy as great as these individuals and to be uncovered beside them by future generations is a possibility I would be honored by. Sure, we might be erased by stronger forces beyond our current control; however, to those who matter, we will not be forgotten.”
— Mpoe Mogale
Community builder, social innovator and entrepreneur, Ivan Touko took a tour of It’s About Time with Cherelle George and Masani St. Rose. He filmed snippets of their reactions as well as wrote a beautiful response piece to the exhibition.
“The following recordings are snippets of how Cherelle, Masani and I felt while going through the exhibition. Though, it is extremely hard to convey the many emotions we felt that day, we hope these recordings can provide you with a small window of insight.”
— Ivan Touko