By Neil Armstrong

A new exhibition at Museum of Toronto, ‘Black Diasporas Tkaronto-Toronto,’ presents films and archives told and created by over 100 Black Canadians and invites visitors who identify as Black to indicate their place of origin on a map of the world. More than 500 personal narratives document the rich histories that have shaped the spaces and places of contemporary Toronto.

“Whether you are Black or not, I think it’s an opportunity to engage with some pretty phenomenal work. It’s an archive of Black stories that represent the Black Diaspora in this city. I think it’s an opportunity for people to engage with those stories that cover the gamut of where people come from, people that have been here for generations, older Black folks who have stories, younger, recent people. All these things, I think, are really encapsulated well through these lived-experience stories that we’ve captured here at the Black Diasporas exhibition,” said David Henson, director of digital production and content at Museum of Toronto.

The archive is from afrOURban, a nonprofit organization that provides a platform for people from African diasporas to discuss their experiences.

As someone who grew up on a farm in southern Ontario and the only Black person in the town, Bria Dietrich, associate curator, public programs and learning at Museum of Toronto, said having an archive of Black voices interviewed by Black people is truly “by Black people for Black people.”

“For a lot of Ontarians or further abroad who maybe don’t have interactions with other Black people to hear their stories, their history and how that intersects with their own and other peoples’ is really exciting and important,” she said.

Dietrich said there is a certain commonality in the Canadian experience no matter where a person is from or what their intersections are therefore anybody can come into the exhibition and see a piece of themselves or their family history.

Henson said his family his Guyanese and father is Black and in Toronto West Indian culture defines a lot of Blackness here.

“It is what a lot of people recognize and I think even for folks from that culture being able to come here and see the parallels and appreciate other communities that have come here and faced a lot of similar challenges — maybe on different timelines, maybe arriving more recently — and so that’s really the opportunity as well, to create those bridges,” he said, noting that it is profound to have those stories under one roof and see the commonality in the experience.

Community programming complements the exhibition and on February 6, ‘No Silence on Race’ — a non-profit organization founded by Sara Yacobi-Harris and Akilah Allen-Silverstein dedicated to re-imagining Jewish life in Canada for multi-ethnic Jews through community activations and content creation — will host a community screening of ‘Periphery’ and a panel featuring Black Jewish stories.

‘Periphery’ is a photographic and film exhibition which explores multi-ethnic Jewish identity including Black Jewish experiences.

Their goal is to invite more Black people outside of the Jewish community to explore Black Jewish narratives as their work seeks to expand narratives and definitions about who Jewish people are.

Yacobi-Harris’s father, Clement Harris, 91, who is from Jamaica, is featured in the ‘Black Diasporas Tkaronto-Toronto’ exhibition.

“Coming from the UK where racism and racial hierarchy were the norm, I arrived in Toronto in the late 60s to a growing city and an abundance of opportunities. Although racism was very present in Toronto, particularly in housing and areas of employment, it still felt more possible to overcome because of the rapid influx of new immigrants and the comfort of a budding Caribbean community,” said Harris who travelled from Jamaica to the UK and there to Canada.

Museum of Toronto will conduct a curatorial tour of the exhibition on February 22 by Henson and Dietrich who hope that people will be prepared to stay and engage with the content.

“It’s been designed in a way that we really do want people spend time and get comfortable,” said Henson. Museum of Toronto is located at 401 Richmond in Toronto; the exhibition runs until March.

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