Camille Turner’s Nave at the Toronto Biennial of Art Featured in CBC Arts
Excerpt from a CBC Arts article by Leah Collins.
Nave, a three-channel video installation by Camille Turner, is one of the original commissioned projects appearing at the Toronto Biennial of Art. Find it at the Small Arms Inspection Building in Mississauga. (Courtesy of the Toronto Biennial of Art)
If you've seen a futuristic time traveller leading a walking tour of downtown Toronto, it might have been Camille Turner. The local artist has assumed that role many times as part of her ongoing project The Afronautic Research Lab, an endeavour that highlights the difficult history that's hidden around us in plain sight, and she brings attention to monuments and markers that reveal Canada's ties to the slave trade. Turner's leading a two-day expedition around the University of Toronto's downtown campus as part of the Biennial, in fact; register to join that walk in May. But it's Newfoundland history that inspired her major project for TBA. While visiting the province, Turner researched how Canada profited from the building of slave ships.
Nave is a three-channel video and art installation that will appear at the Small Arms Inspection Building in Mississauga. Hopkins describes the work as a piece that contributes to how we understand place and history. "I think that this is an example of how the biennial can work together with artists to create really powerful works," she says.
The Toronto Biennial of Art (TBA) opens Saturday, March 26 and for 10 whole weeks, its slate of programming is entirely free to explore. In addition to art exhibitions, the program includes performances, workshops and walking tours, and all that action will be spread across nine different venues, a mix of art galleries and repurposed spaces that stretch from the city's downtown all the way to Mississauga.