Activist Portrait Series

Since 2016, Activist Portrait Series has celebrated activists’ culture and lives and has been a way of understanding the choices made — small and large — in making the world a better place. One where we all have self-determination. One where we all get to be free.

Creating these large-scale portraits of activists, revolutionaries, and community mobilizers has been an act of reverence; a celebration of life and choice and of action(s).

Copy of ActivistPortraitSeries_OpenSpace_2017 (1).jpg — By using the methods and modes of painting and portraiture, community — specifically Black, Indigenious, Queer and Trans, the disability community — is documented as a lived reality and painted into art history. Lives are rendered visible through this large format and use of a style and medium previously reserved for dignitaries and wealthy patrons. The artistic tradition of painting is impacted by re-enforcing systemic structures such as class hierarchies, racism, and defining which humans are valuable. This body of work attempts to interrupt this process by re-entering the frame around “unintelligible bodies” — those on the margins.

FEATURED ACTIVISTS

Hampton Gerbrandt
Hampton is a Black, trans local musician and activist based in Vancouver. They create evocative, personal works that bridge improvisation and archival explorations. As an artist, Hampton also works in sculpture and drawing to explore land work, activism and Black culture.
Dr OmiSoore Dryden
OmiSoore is a long time Black queer organizer who is currently serving as a research chair at Dalhousie University in Halifax. OmiSoore started the “Got Blood to Give?” campaign addressing homo and transphobia in Canadian Blood Services policies. She spent several years in the lower mainland, engaging in direct action and organizing in Vancouver and in Victoria in the early 2000s.
Rodney Diverlus
Rodney is a Black queer dancer, choreographer and long-time activist. As co-founder of Black Lives Matter- Toronto, Rodney helped spearhead a new generation of Black liberatory movements on northern Turtle Island. He spent years in the west of Turtle Island, dancing for Decidedly Jazz in Calgary and engaging in revolutionary struggle there.

Troy Jackson and El Farouk Khaki

Troy and El Farouk are both activists who grew up in Vancouver. As individuals, Troy and El Farouk have built reputations as an artist and design and human rights lawyer respectively. Together, they run a queer Muslim group in Tkaronto with global membership and are co-founders of Supreme Tamu, an eco and ethically sourced children’s clothing company.

Taui Green

Taui Green is an activist in Minneapolis. This image comes from a 2015 protest that they participated in at the Mall of America during which BLM protestors occupied a public space demanding justice for Eric Garner.

Thandi Young

Thandi is a long time Black queer activist who has worked in the area of housing and mental health support. She is cocurator of Blockorama, a large-scale Black queer and trans festival that has run for 24 years at Toronto Pride.

Tina “QueenTite” Opaleke

Tina “QueenTite” Opaleke is a Nigerian/Jamaican hybrid of the African diaspora and the co-founding director of PFFD (Prosthetics For Foreign Donation). A former international model and spoken word poet, she led chants for the Winnipeg Women’s March on Washington 2017, was awarded The ACA Humanitarian Award 2019 and is now pursuing her honours BA in behavioural sciences.

EXHIBITION HISTORY

2016

Group exhibition, Centre for Incidental Activisms (CIA) #3, the Art Gallery of York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Drafted by Emelie Chhangur, Suzanne Carte, and Michael Maranda.

2017

Group exhibition, Every Now, Then, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Co-curated by Andrew Hunter and Anique Jordan.

Group exhibition, The Images in Our Heads, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Co-curated by Vanessa Dion Fletcher and Lindsay Fisher.

Group exhibition, Deconstructing Comfort, Open Space Gallery, Victoria, BC, Canada. Co-curated by Michelle Jacques, Doug Jarvis and France Trépanier.