Poetry Reading with Sylvia D. Hamilton and Amatoritsero Ede
Join us for a poetry reading with Sylvia D. Hamilton and Amatoritsero Ede, organized in conjunction with the new exhibition Estuaries. Organized in collaboration with the Department of English at Mount Allison University.
Amatoritsero Ede has published three well-received collections of poetry, “A Writers Pains & Caribbean Blues (1998), Globetrotter & Hitler’s Children (2009) and Teardrops on the Weser (2021) as well as one collection of literary nonfiction, Imagination’s Many Rooms (2022). He also appears in over 15 poetry anthologies and is the publisher and Managing Editor of the Maple Tree Literary Supplement, MTLS. He teaches English at Mount Allison University.
Sylvia D. Hamilton is a multi-award-winning Nova Scotian filmmaker, artist and writer known for the documentaries Portia White: Think on Me, The Little Black School House and Black Mother Black Daughter, among others. Her poetry collection, And I Alone Escaped to Tell You, a finalist for the Nova Scotia Masterworks Award and the 2015 League of Canadian Poets Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her latest collection titled Tender was a finalist for the League of Canadian Poets 2023 Pat Lowther Award and the winner of the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia Maxine Tynes Poetry Award. She is an Inglis Professor Emeritus at the University of King’s College and recently she was appointed to the Order of Canada and the Order of Nova Scotia.
About the Exhibition
Estuaries form when freshwater rivers meet the ocean and become slightly salty. The Atlantic is the saltiest of the five ocean basins. John Owens, eponym of the Owens Art Gallery, was a successful shipbuilder, as was his executor, Robert Reed. Using funds from Owens’ estate, Reed worked with artist John Hammond to develop a teaching collection now housed at the Owens. The Maritimes, like the rest of Canada, profited from shipbuilding and colonial economies linked to transatlantic slavery. Meanwhile, Black histories were systematically washed away. Estuaries floats in the space between these facts, musing on Black diasporic peoples’ relationship to the ocean.
Tweedie Hall Venue Access
Tweedie Hall is located on the main floor of theWallace McCain Student Centre. The stairs to the student centre have a handrail, and there is also ramp access at the York Street entrance. The main floor of the Student Centre is wheelchair accessible. Gendered bathrooms are located on the main floor and are wheelchair accessible.
Related Programming
Vernissage
Friday 4 October, 5:30 – 7:30 pm, at the Owens
Panel Discussion with Sylvia D. Hamilton, Joana Joachim, Thandiwe McCarthy and David Woods
Saturday 5 October, 11:00 am – 12:30 pm, at the Owens
This exhibition was made possible thanks to funding from the Canada Council for the Arts and the New Brunswick Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture. It received special support from the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (Halifax), the Centre for Canadian Studies (Mount Allison University), the Department of English (Mount Allison University), and the Faculty of Fine Arts (Concordia University).
Image: Sylvia D. Hamilton, The Passage, Waters of the Diaspora, 2014, video still. © Maroon Films Inc., 2024
