Camille Turner camilleturner.com Page 1 of 11

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1 Camille Turner camilleturner.com Page 1 of 11 CAMILLE TURNER Interdisciplinary Artist with a focus on Afrofuturism I am an explorer of race, space, home and belonging. I am particularly interested in the ways in which stories that are hidden powerfully shape our perceptions of national identity. My current work combines Afrofuturism with historical research. Utilizing performance as a research method, I step into history to create works of the imagination where the past and future collide. I seek to unearth what Toni Morrison refers to the truth beyond the facts.

2 Camille Turner camilleturner.com Page 2 of 11 WANTED Lightboxes and video collaboration with Camal Pirbhai Exhbitied at the Art Gallery of Windsor as part of Border Cultures 3, 2015 Using performance to embody the detailed descriptions in runaway slave and slave for sale ads posted by Canadian slaveowners in early newspapers, WANTED presents a embodied archive of slavery. Rather than portraying enslaved people in the past where their lives were constrained by the violence and inhumanity of institutionalized bondage, they are seen in the future spaces of possibility they dreamed about as they set off on their journey towards freedom. At first glance the images appear to be fashion photos but the text on each picture is taken from archival newspaper ads displayed beside them. The video presents Peggy Pompadour with her teenage son Jupiter entering the posh King Edward Hotel. Her owner, who had placed an ad in the Upper Canada Gazette trying to sell the mother and son had previously imprisoned them for resisting slavery. Ironically, the site of the jail is the present site of the King Edward hotel.

3 Camille Turner camilleturner.com Page 3 of 11 THE LANDSCAPE OF FORGETTING Performative walk collaboration with Alana Bartol A Neighbourhood Spaces Residency in Windsor, Ontario Through a Neighbourhood Spaces residency I collaborated with Windsor artist Alana Bartol to bring the stories of slavery in the Windsor area to life. My interest in these hidden histories came from my experience of walking past François Bâby house, former home of François Bâby and currently, the site of the Community Museum of Windsor. The sign in front of the house declares that François Bâby was from one of the city s most illustrious old families but I happened to know they owned slaves and this was not mentioned. Through our project, The Landscape of Forgetting, we made the history of slavery visible and commemorated the unpaid and uncelebrated work of enslaved people who helped build the city.

4 Camille Turner camilleturner.com Page 4 of 11 THE FIVE AND DIME WALKING TOUR Cultural heritage seen through the strip malls of Mississauga A Residency at Art Gallery of Mississauga, Ontario Through a residency at Art Gallery of Mississauga I created a dialogue with Mississauga s residents that interrupted the official narrative of the city to enable hidden voices to be heard. The 5 and Dime walking tour showcaased the messy urban vitality of Mississauga s strip malls as living sites of cultual heritage.

5 Camille Turner camilleturner.com Page 5 of 11 HUSH HARBOUR Exploring a Black Canadian geography through a sound walk Portland and Wellington Avenues, Toronto The Act to Prevent the Further Importation of Slaves passed in 1793 enabled enslaved Americans to cross the Canadian border into freedom but ensured that people who were enslaved in Canada remained slaves for life until 1833 when Britain abolished slavery in her colonies. This sound walk presents the story of Peggy, a woman enslaved in Canada who falls in love with Samuel, a man who escaped from bondage in American and crossed the Canadian border into freedom. Peggy was planning her escape while Samuel wants to stay and taste freedom for the first time.

6 Camille Turner camilleturner.com Page 6 of 11 THE RESISTENCE OF PEGGY POMPADOUR An installation and sound walk exposing history at the site of the King Edward Hotel Exhibited at WARC Gallery, 2013 The Resistance of Peggy Pompadour is a sound walk accompanied by an installation consisting of three images and a life-sized model of a crude jail cell. The piece brings to life an incident where Peter Russell, who owned Peggy Pompadour sends her to jail for resisting slavery. Ironically, the location of the jail is the present site of Toronto s posh King Edward Hotel. The story, set slightly in the future, features Gloria Smith, a young Black woman who is brought to the hotel by her mother to celebrate her 21st birthday. Gloria finds herself involuntarily traveling back to the past where she encounters Peggy in a jail cell. When Gloria returns to the future she is determined to tell Peggy s story.

7 Camille Turner camilleturner.com Page 7 of 11 TABLEAUX Staged photos collaboration with Camal Pirbhai commissioned for the Restless Precinct exhbition at Scarborough s Guildwood Park, 2014 This series of humourous staged photographs created collaboratively with Camal Pirbhai, reveal scenes hidden in Scarborough s Guildwood Park. In these tableaux, nature and the unnatural mingle to reflect the unseen social anxiety and colonial tensions nestled amidst the relics of the past.

8 Camille Turner camilleturner.com Page 8 of 11 MISS CANADIANA S HERITAGE AND CULTURE WALKING TOURS Performance walking tour through Toronto s Grange Neighbourhood Presented for Jane s Walk 2011 In Miss Canadiana s Heritage and Culture Walking Tours, Miss Canadiana acts as a tour guide to the hidden Black histories of Toronto s Grange neighbourhood.

9 Camille Turner camilleturner.com Page 9 of 11 HOMETOWN QUEEN Paying hommage to Hamilton, my hometown, through staged photographs Exhibited at The Print Studio, Hamilton, Ontario, 2010 I created Hometown Queen to re-write my personal history and to pay homage to my complicated relationship with Hamilton, my hometown. The Hamilton I grew up in is a proud, hard-working steel town with a no-nonsense attitude. On the one hand I admire this city s fierce resistance to the influence of nearby sprawling full-of-itself Toronto. On the other hand, growing up there I witnessed and experienced many incidents of blatant bigotry. I couldn t wait to get away from Hamilton when I was young but now I realize that this complex city made me the person I am today always looking beneath the surface and recognizing the irony in everything around me.

10 Camille Turner camilleturner.com Page 10 of 11 TIMEWARP Commissioned by Land/Slide: Possible Futures exhbition, 2013 Site-specific Video walk from the Final Frontier series TimeWarp is a video walk commissioned for the Land/Slide: Possible Futures exhibition. It is part of the series The Final Frontier, which follows the adventure of African Space travelers who are descendants of the Dogon people of West Africa. According to Dogon stories, their vast knowledge of star systems predating Western science by thousands of years came to them through extraterrestrials. In my story the Afronauts left earth 10,000 years ago and have returned home to save the planet. I structured TimeWarp as an intercultural engagement that transforms smartphones into time machines that enable museum visitors to experience past and future events. The mysterious beings were glimpsed by a character named Hanna Walk, who happened to visit the Markham museum when the Afronauts arrived. Baffled by what she was witnessing, Hanna did what most of us would do, she reached for her cell phone and recorded a video of them walking through Museum s Heritage Village. Visitors can now use their cellphones to watch Hanna s video while walking through the site and following in their footsteps.

11 Camille Turner camilleturner.com Page 11 of 11 THE DOOR OF NO RETURN Photographs, stories and sound works captured on Goree Island and St. Louis, Senegal Work in progress from a trip to West Africa in 2014 The Door of No Return is a series of photographs, stories and sound works captured in Senegal where I recorded the song of the ocean through the port where the slave ships pulled up on Goree Island and stepped into a dungeon in St Louis where a French trading company kept imprisoned slaves before selling them to European merchants. I do not know through which door my ancestors exited Africa but this is where I chose to return.