image courtesy of Cristian Ordóñez
AFK | Performances

Performance: A Smile Split by the Stars

Join us for a poetry reading with m. nourbeSe philip, continuing the conversation inspired by the exhibition. This special event invites philip to read her work, followed by a celebratory set from DJ TAMIKA. Together, poetry and sound will reverberate through the exhibition that is dedicated to philip’s writing, expanding and deepening the relationship between text, sound and space.

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A Smile Split by the Stars is a collaborative narration of m. nourbeSe philip’s poem, “Meditations on the Declension of Beauty by the Girl with the Flying Cheek-bones.” Working within, across and beyond colonial lexicons—the installation reads philip’s poem through and as different audio-visual-textual moments of revolutionary intent, wherein Black girlhood and Black femininity are, a priori (‘from what is earlier’), re-coding the aesthetic promises of modernity.

Exhibition and Programs in partnership and co-produced with Agnes Etherington Art Centre and Modern Fuel. Co-presented with Images Festival, the Canada Research Chair in Black Studies at Queen’s University and the Revolutionary Demand for Happiness Working Group.

Curated by
Katherine McKittrick, Nasrin Himada, Sameen Mahboubi
Date / Time
April 12, 2025
8:00PM – 10:00PM EDT
Location
Gallery 44
401 Richmond St West, Toronto ON M5V 3A8 Suite 120 TUE–SAT: 11AM–5PM SUN, MON: CLOSED
401 Richmond St West, Toronto ON M5V 3A8 Suite 120. Street level entrance, ramp, elevator, automatic doors, door width 34”. Gender neutral accessible (32”+) washrooms, stall, no automatic door. No accessible parking on site.

For a map to Gallery 44, click here

(ARTISTS)

m. nourbeSe philip, Tamika Bernard
Presented With:
G44 logo

Images Festival operates on land stolen from the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, the Huron-Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Tkáron:to is currently home to diverse Indigenous and Métis peoples as well as people who settle on this land. As part of Treaty 13 and the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Covenant, we acknowledge that we all eat from the same bowl and spoon, and must take only what we need, ensuring resources are available for all. 

As art workers, artists, and curators, we see the process of untangling ourselves from settler complicity as internal, structural, and ongoing. It is not something to be taken lightly. The inclusion of Indigenous artists and curators into our program is just the first step of necessary and deeper change. Extending from our organizational accountability work, we strive to not only undo forms of complicity, but also actively create an environment and infrastructure that can support Indigenous peoples who work with us. 

Images expresses our solidarity with Indigenous people on Turtle Island and globally. We are committed to continuing to learn, critique, and challenge the settler colonial structures we are complicit in.