in parallel is a group exhibition that brings together six artists from Tkaronto and surrounding areas. Rouzbeh Akhbari, Joi T. Arcand, Aylan Couchie, Simon Fuh, Anique Jordan, and Julia Rose Sutherland explore how visual documentation and cultural practices can reclaim the narratives of their respective communities despite colonialism’s persistence. The artists’ pursuit of alternative histories reflects a desire to preserve connections to lands, peoples, and ways of living that mould who they are. In doing so, they also highlight the impact of oppressive forces on numerous communities around the world that continue to resist erasure by undertaking land-based resistance.
These artists and works have been brought together as a way of finding the commonalities and differences among various forms of resistance in times of crises. How do we put differing liberation movements in dialogue to find the shared experiences that can make all of us co-conspirators, comrades, and allies? In her photographs, Anique Jordan confronts racist stereotypes with intimate portraits of Black people, while Julia Rose Sutherland engages with Indigenous traditions and knowledge to create sculptures that foster a collective healing. Joi T. Arcand reclaims Indigenous land with a site-specific commission that marks The Power Plant’s Fleck Clerestory with affirmations in nēhiyawēwin (Cree), while Simon Fuh’s vinyls retrace the original paths of two rivers in Ontario that colonists rerouted. A film co-directed by Rouzbeh Akhbari and Felix Kalmenson, and sculptures by Aylan Couchie reveal how nation-states continuously disrupt lands and people.
in parallel is the first of two exhibitions that will present the work of twelve local artists, evoking The Power Plant’s very first exhibition, Toronto: A Play of History (Jeu d’histoire), 1987. Both of the 2023 exhibitions will bring together tensions, hopes, and the transformative spaces artists create in the unfolding aftermath of settler colonialism. Specifically, in parallel will highlight the intimate connections between land and body, while expressing each artist’s desire for changes that can lead to an intercommunal future.