Image: Forgotten Man, detail, digital print negative and cyanotype print on porcelain over LED lightbox, 13 x 17 in, with Time magazine, February 22, 1969 issue, featuring a citation of the artist’s father.
Photo: Olivier Lamarre
“In 2023, I was invited to create a solo exhibition for Le centre céramique Bonsecours, part of the ceramics CEGEP in old Montreal. After grappling for some time, I realized that the story I had to tell in Montreal, for Montreal, was this story of systemic racism within a Canadian academic institution in Montreal in the late 1960s; the story of young people of every colour standing up for Black equality in Canada; the story of allyship, of other West Indians of Indian descent taking a stand for their Black colleagues; my father’s story, that portrays him as an immigrant of colour supporting his white friend whose overt anti-Blackness sparked unprecedented violence; the story of decades of racial tension between West Indians of African descent and West Indians of South Asian descent that underpinned my father’s story.”
Originally published on May 21, 2026 in Ceramics Now.