The Vancouver Art Gallery Presents Celebrating Black Futures,
Bringing Together Writing, Film and Performance
This February, the Vancouver Art Gallery presents Celebrating Black Futures, a month-long public program series that fosters critical dialogue and creative exchange around the work of Black and African artists, locally and globally. Through talks, performances, film screenings and community-led conversations, the series brings Black artistic practices into focus, encouraging moments of reflection and collective exchange.
By foregrounding diverse voices and lived experiences, Celebrating Black Futures deepens public understanding, challenges dominant narratives and builds meaningful connections between artists, audiences and broader cultural contexts. The bespoke line-up, brought together in honour of Black History Month and in partnership with the Vancouver International Film Festival and The Black Arts Centre, celebrates Black Futures in Vancouver, Canada and beyond.
“We are thrilled to be presenting Celebrating Black Futures for its fourth year,” say Eva Respini and Sirish Rao, Interim Co-CEOs at the Vancouver Art Gallery. “We see these events and important partnerships as an opportunity to celebrate the rich cultural heritage of Black communities and to engage with Black creativity not only as artistic expression but as a vital force shaping histories, futures and ways of being together.”
Celebrating Black Futures is organized by Kika Memeh, Public Programs Assistant at the Vancouver Art Gallery. She adds: “Through the work and practice of the incredible artists featured, this year’s programming offers a pathway for tracing and attending to the tangible connections between African, Black Canadian and Afrodiasporic ways of seeing and being.”
Highlights include a writing workshop led by Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize–shortlisted poet Junie Désil, inviting participants to reflect on water, place and belonging in dialogue with the exhibition We who have known tides: Indigenous Art from the Collection; the premiere screening of Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story, an uplifting documentary celebrating the photographer and activist whose images helped define the global “Black is Beautiful” movement; and the B.C. premiere of True North, a visually striking film that revisits pivotal moments in 1960s Montreal and positions Canada within the global Black liberation movement. In dialogue with Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama, True North reveals how Black American liberation movements—emerging just years after Freedom Summer—directly shaped Black Canadian political consciousness and appetite for systemic change. This dialogue is further explored through a panel discussion presented in conjunction with the exhibition, which revisits the direct impacts of Tamio Wakayama’s powerful photography and underscores the role of images in preserving memory and resistance. Together, these events create space for learning, connection and conversation, centering
2026 SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Writing Workshop: We who have known tides
Saturday February 7, 2026 | 11 AM–1 PM | Room 4East, Vancouver Art Gallery
Led by poet Junie Désil, this generative writing workshop unfolds in conversation with the exhibition We who have known tides: Indigenous Art from the Collection. Participants are invited into the Gallery with a spirit of attention, considering the ocean as a site of relation, memory and deep time. Guided by the writings of Toni Morrison, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Dionne Brand, the workshop moves between observation, reflection and writing to explore themes of place, belonging, diaspora and the tides—literal and figurative—that shape our lives. No prior writing experience required. Tickets can be booked online at: www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/
This event is co-presented with The Black Arts Centre
Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story
B.C. Premiere Screening | Wednesday, February 11, 2026 | 6:20 PM | VIFF Centre, VIFF Cinema
This feature documentary traces the life and legacy of Harlem-based photographer, activist and freedom fighter Kwame Brathwaite, whose images helped define the global “Black is Beautiful” movement. Drawing from a vast archive of more than 500,000 photographs, the film celebrates Black joy, style and community—from everyday street life to intimate portraits of cultural icons including Nina Simone, Muhammad Ali and Stevie Wonder. Radical in its time and resonant today, Black Is Beautiful is an uplifting and cinematic tribute to beauty and resistance. Tickets can be booked online at: www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/
This event is co-presented with Vancouver International Film Festival
Panel Discussion: Photography, Memory and Social Justice
Saturday February 14, 2026 | 3:30–5 PM | Room 4East, Vancouver Art Gallery
Presented in conjunction with Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama, this panel discussion brings together former Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizers Judy Richardson and Masaru Edmund Nakawatase, community advocate Kiyoko Judy Hanazawa, and moderator Dr. Desirée Valadares for a powerful conversation. The discussion traces a lineage of socially engaged photography—from Depression-era America and the work of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange to Tamio Wakayama’s photographic documentation of Japanese Canadian internment and racial injustice. Centering Wakayama’s work, panelists examine intersections between the Japanese Canadian Redress Movement and the US Civil Rights Movement, highlighting photography’s role in preserving memory, expressing resilience and documenting social struggle. Tickets can be booked online at: www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/
This event is an initiative of the Gallery’s Centre for Global Asias and Presented as Part of Celebrating Black Futures.
Community Partner:
True North
B.C. Premiere Screening and Live Performance with Andy Milne
Saturday February 28, 2026 | 5 PM and 8:15 PM | VIFF Centre, VIFF Cinema
Set in 1960s Montreal, True North centres on the 1969 student protests against racism at Montreal’s Concordia University (then known as Sir George Williams University) and their contribution to the story of Black liberation. The film is an electrifying history of Black Canada, a story of displacement and discrimination, prejudice and Black pride, from Freedom Road to Africville and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, fused from a mind-bogglingly rich cache of archival material, first person accounts and a remarkable score by celebrated jazz pianist Andy Milne.
In this West Coast premiere, Andy Milne will perform a 45-minute set followed by a 15-minute Q&A (5 PM show); and then a longer set sans Q&A (8:15 PM show), presented alongside a screening of the film at both shows. Tickets can be booked online at: www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/
This event is co-presented with Vancouver International Film Festival
Celebrating Black Futures is organized by Kika Memeh, Public Programs Assistant at the Vancouver Art Gallery. For more information, visit: Celebrating Black Futures 2026 | Vancouver Art Gallery
Celebrating Black Futures is presented in partnership with:
More to explore at the Gallery:
Film Screenings: Freedom Summer
Friday, February 6, 13 and 20, 2026 | 6–8 PM | 3rd Floor, The Vancouver Art Gallery
Screenings of Stanley Nelson Jr.’s acclaimed documentary Freedom Summer (2014) are presented in conjunction with the exhibition Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama. The film takes audiences into 1960s Mississippi, where the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)—with Tamio Wakayamaamong its volunteers—organized the Freedom Summer of 1964, a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement. Blending archival footage with first-hand accounts, the documentary captures the courage and collective action that helped reshape a nation, while offering vital historical context for Wakayama’s photographs and activism. Screenings take place on the 3rd Floor within the exhibition. To attend, reserve an admission ticket for the night of the screening. For more information, visit: www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/
Government Partner:
Images:
Header: (From left to right:) Junie Désil, Photo: Joy Unagaebu; Kwame Brathwaite, Untitled (Sikolo Brathwaite with Headpiece designed by Carolee Prince), 1968, inkjet print on paper, Courtesy of The Kwame Brathwaite Archive; Michèle Stephenson dir., True North, 2025 (film still); Archival photograph: Poet and activist Ted Joans at the Congress of Black Writers in Montreal, Canada, 1968, Courtesy of Studio112; Tamio Wakayama, Burnt cross at Freedom School, Pascagoula, Mississippi, c. fall 1964, 1964, archival inkjet print, Estate of Tamio Wakayama
Junie Désil, Photo: Joy Unagaebu; Visitors discover Sydney Pascal, Distance, 2022, in We who have known tides: Indigenous Art from the Collection, exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery, November 6, 2025 to April 12, 2026, Photo: Vancouver Art Gallery
Kwame Brathwaite, Untitled (Self Portrait), 1964, inkjet print on paper, Courtesy of The Kwame Brathwaite Archive
Michèle Stephenson dir., True North, 2025 (film still); Archival photograph: Women supporters gathered outside the courtroom during the Sir George Williams protest trials, Courtesy of Studio112
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