Black and white film still from Encounter at Kwacha House by Rex Tasker – Halifax, 1967

Broad/Cast: Reclaiming Representation

Dalhousie Art Gallery
6101 University Avenue
Dalhousie Arts Centre
Lower level
Halifax, Nova Scotia

Spanning experimental and conceptual practices in the works of:

Aquakultre
Buseje Bailey
Karen Miranda Augustine
Rex Tasker
Rhea Storr

Curated by Geoffrey Webster, Broad/Cast emerged in response to the persistent misrepresentation of Black identity in media. This exhibition offers vital and deserved space for artists who push back against dominant narratives and, in turn, set the standard for truthful depiction.

The artists in Broad/Cast profoundly engage with African-Nova Scotian, African-Canadian, and/or global African diasporic perspectives. Through personal and dynamic explorations of race, artists in this exhibition simultaneously confront gender and class stereotypes, offering a critical yet broader lens on longstanding representational issues within lens-based media.

Visit the Dalhousie Art Gallery website for details.


The Beaded Crown workshop for caregivers and the bereaved: Saturday, June 28, 2025

The Beaded Crown workshop

Saturday, June 28, 2025
Beaver Hall Gallery
29 McCaul Street
Toronto
1:00 - 4:00 p.m.

Early Bird Tickets: $85 (until June 20th)
Tickets: $100
Price includes beading materials
Get tickets on Eventbrite

Join me for a three-hour workshop that blends peer bereavement, African spiritual symbolism, mindfulness, and basic beading techniques into a unique meditation session for those experiencing anxiety and isolation due to a significant loss, anticipatory grief or bereavement.

Visit the Ancestral Arts Collective website for full details.


Ehime Ora book launch and workshop, Toronto: May 28 & 29, 2025

The Ancestral Arts Collective launched with Nigerian writer and Ifá priestess Ehime Ora

The Ancestral Arts Collective (AAC) is a new project I initiated with Nishi Gouldbourne, a fellow death-care worker, in the summer of 2024. The AAC is a collective of Black artists, healing arts practitioners, scholars, and storytellers dedicated to the reclamation of grief, death, and African spiritual practices.

We officially launched in May 2025.

Our first events were a huge success and featured New York-based writer Ehime Ora for the Toronto leg of her book tour for Spirits Come from Water and a workshop on the Ifá concept of orí.

Details and pics can be found on the AAC website and our Instagram: @ancestralartscollective

Join the Ancestral Arts Collective mailing list to be kept abreast.


Mom opens Christmas gift, sitting across from me as a child

The Anxiety of Grief

I never knew that anxiety attacks were a normal expression of grief until my mom died. I wrote about my experiences of them, what I learned, and the coping strategies that worked for me on Chel Bell Guild's Substack, Life and Death.

Chel is a death doula, grief educator, and writer from Southwest Florida who I connected with through social media a few years ago. I enjoyed some of her posts and her writing resonated with me.

Recently, she invited me to share my story. Writing this piece ended up feeling like therapy.



View of Lake Ontario from Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts, Toronto Island

MOTHRA Caregiver Residency

Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts 
Toronto Island

I took part in MOTHRA’s first instalment of their artist residency for artists who are unpaid caregivers living in Canada.

Inspired by Cove Park’s Creative Residencies for Carers (Scotland), this was a respite residency for artists to work on their practice away from those they care for. 

The program consisted of unstructured time in the studio but also provided opportunities for group discussions, which strengthened our connections with each other. In group we shared our experiences of caregiving, loss, mental health and life challenges.

It also provided me with the opportunity to pilot Bluebelles: Therapeutic Art Workshops for the Bereaved. With the passing of my mother, my grief has been expressing itself as anxiety attacks. And through those challenges, I created a series of arts-based workshops (inspired by death and mourning practices from the African diaspora) to help myself and others process emotions and increase awareness of how these feelings are held within the body.

I received some constructive feedback during this residency and am looking forward to hosting these workshops to the larger community this spring. 

Contact me if you'd like to be notified of their launch.


Death, Design, Culture: Radical Re-imaginings for the End of Life Conference: 04-06 September 2025, Falmouth University

Death x Design x Culture Conference

Falmouth University 
Woodlane Campus, Cornwall, UK

I was invited to participate in the Death x Design x Culture conference where I presented a talk on my Public Displays of Affection project after screening the video component of it.

The conference convened a diverse community of scholars, artists, researchers, designers, and practitioners to explore the role of design as it relates to death at individual, community, and broader cultural contexts.

It was a really interesting mix of topics, from public and digital memorials, Victorian mourning jewellery, MAiD topics, grief representation in Japanese film, to an insightful walking tour and historical discussion of garden cemetaries.