As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic
5 November 2024 - 20 January 2025
Book Now Admission: Starting from £6, a ticket will grant access to both AS WE RISE and ADAPTATION.
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About
AS WE RISE: PHOTOGRAPHY FROM THE BLACK ATLANTIC is an exciting exhibition of photographs from African Diasporic culture. Organised by Aperture and curated by Elliott Ramsey, the exhibition showcases work by Black artists from Canada, the Caribbean, Great Britain, the United States, and the continent of Africa.
The exhibition celebrates the expansive sensibility of the works in the Wedge Collection, Canada’s largest privately-owned collection committed to championing Black artists, established by Dr. Kenneth Montague in 1997. Centring the familial alongside the familiar, the exhibition embraces concepts of community, identity, and power, and recognizes the complex strength, beauty, vulnerability, and irreducibility of Black life. The exhibition features such established names as Horace Ové, James Barnor and Gordon Parks, as well as emerging talents such as Texas Isaiah and Arielle Bobb-Willis.
AS WE RISE: PHOTOGRAPHY FROM THE BLACK ATLANTIC, selections from the Wedge Collection, is organized by Aperture and curated by Elliott Ramsey.
An accompanying book, published by Aperture, will be available to purchase in the Gallery Shop and Saatchi Store online.
About Elliott Ramsey
Elliott Ramsey is Curator of The Polygon Gallery in Vancouver, Canada. Ramsey holds a Master of Arts in Comparative Media Arts (2015) from Simon Fraser University. Ramsey is an alumnus of the Association of Art Museum Curators’ Professional Alliance for Curators of Colour, and has sat on numerous panels, advisories, and art juries including the Sobey Award, VIVA Award, Portfolio Prize, and Capture Photography Festival, among various other committees.
About the Wedge Collection
The Wedge Collection was started in 1997 by Dr. Kenneth Montague to acquire and exhibit art that explores Black identity. In addition to the Wedge Collection, Montague founded Wedge Curatorial Projects, a non-profit arts organization that helps support emerging Black artists. A Toronto-based art collector, Montague has been a member of the Art Gallery of Ontario’s board of trustees since 2015 and has served on the African acquisitions committee at Tate Modern, London, as well as on the photography curatorial committee of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
About Aperture
Established in 1952, Aperture is a non-profit publisher that leads conversations around photography worldwide. From its base in New York, Aperture connects global audiences and supports artists through its acclaimed quarterly magazine, books, exhibitions, digital platforms, public programs, limited-edition prints, and awards. Aperture champions photography’s vital role in nurturing curiosity and encouraging a more just, tolerant society.
