@chantalgibsonartist

An anthology of Black art, poetry, prose, scores, scripts and silences

This anthology is a poly-vocal, visually stunning answer to the question, What are the sounds of community and how they are handed down? A home for Black art and culture in Seattle’s Central District, with this anthology Wa Na Wari makes a home for the essays, poetry, scores, scripts and silences of the Black poets, musicians, artists and scholars assembled by editors Rachel Kessler and Elisheba Johnson to wonder about the time-traveling, place-making power of sound.

Contributors:

• Anastacia-Reneé   
• Kamari Bright
• Thione Diop
• Mary Edwards
• Rachael F.
• Aricka Foreman
• Rell Be Free
• Amir George
• Chantal Gibson
• Walis Johnson
• JusMoni
• Anaïs Maviel
• Larry Mizell Jr.
• Okanomodé
• Christina Sharpe

Chantal Gibson is an award-winning teacher and nationally acclaimed artist and writer whose anti-racism and decolonizing work is making an impact in her classrooms and in schools and cultural institutions across Canada.

A self-described teacher-artist, Gibson’s pedagogy of kindness, inclusion and human-centred teaching practices are motivated by recollections of her own classroom encounters with anti-Black racism as an undergraduate student. As classroom citizens, Gibson’s students are asked to grapple with cultural or societal issues related to their interests....

As an artist-scholar, Gibson has reached national prominence. Her poetry book, How She Read (Caitlin, 2019) challenges the colonial classroom and the representation of Black women across the Canadian cultural landscape. Now on secondary and post-secondary school readings lists, it won the 2020 Pat Lowther Award for Best Book of Poetry by a Canadian woman, and the 2020 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize (BC).

Gibson's Historical In(ter)ventions series of black threaded altered book sculptures challenge systemic racism in Canada, highlighting the omission of Black voices. Shown in libraries, museums and galleries, and most recently the Senate of Canada, her work asks Canadians to consider the "why" behind equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives.

Written by: Linda Kanyamuna, SFU Student

Since November of 2020, Vancouverites have been consuming the resilience, energy, and beauty of Black womanhood through visual art in the form of a 240 foot photo-poetic art installation un/settled. The piece, which resides at the intersection of West Hastings and Richards Street occupying SFU Belzberg Library’s large windows, embodies Blackness and everything that celebrates Black creativity. 

The artwork features stunning poetry written by writer and academic Dr. Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, and portrait imagery of artist-educator Chantal Gibson. On February 10, both Black creatives, along with SFU Belzberg head librarian Ebony Magnus, shared dialogue for upholding Black voices through art in an enticing panel that aimed to unpack the presence of Black bodies in urban public spaces...

Thoughts on Liberation, CanadianArt June 17, 2020. 

Black scholars, activists and artists respond to the present moment—Christina Battle, Dionne Brand, Denise Ferreira da Silva, El Jones, Robyn Maynard, Charmaine Nelson and Christina Sharpe.                                   Redacted Text, 2019 in Canadian Art.