STANLEY WANY. ESPACES IMPRÉVISIBLES

Galerie de l’UQAM welcomes Unpredictable Spaces, an exhibition by Stanley Wany, Graduating Master’s student in Visual and Media Arts at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). Supported by movements of thought on Black identity, the exhibition is grounded in the cultural ecosystem of the Antilles and becomes a site of “creolization,” an unpredictable space created out of the encounter between different perspectives.

The exhibition

Unpredictable Spaces draws on the artist’s family history and the rich heritage of his ancestors, their creolization and the resolve which forged and lifted them beyond challenging circumstances. “Creolization”, a term coined by Barbadian poet and academician Edward Kamau Brathwaite, and popularized by the Martinican author and thinker Édouard Glissant, originally refers to a literary process describing the hybridization of different cultures. In his work, Stanley Wany turns to this concept as it pertains to the life journey of his maternal grandfather, Albert Gibbs. Born to a father from Trinidad and Tobago, whose last name is English, and to a Franco-Haitian mother, Gibbs grew up in Haiti in a context of colonial oppression, both historical and contemporary, eventually rising above the dominant forces. Evolving in the Caribbean, Wany’s grand-father’s determination emerges from this place shaped by the encounter between cultures and perspectives, an unpredictable space.

Integrating archival images and found objects to an installation which includes drawing, sculpture and materials grown in former colonial plantations (coffee, sugar cane, indigo and cotton), the exhibition reflects on the concept of creolization which well describes how the artist’s family history has been built. In this way, Wany brings forward the experience of Black communities in the Americas, who are undoubtedly resilient beyond subjugation and actively engaged in various forms of cultural hybridization.

About the artist

Multi-disciplinary artist Stanley Wany lives and works in Montréal, where he is pursuing a Master’s in Visual and Media Arts at UQAM. His practice, which explores identity and cultural myths, includes drawing, painting, installation and experimental graphic novels. His works have been presented and acquired in Canada, Australia, the United-States, Finland, France and Portugal. Helem, his latest graphic novel published in 2021 with Conundrum Press, is the culmination of more than seven years of research and experimentation. Since participating in an artist residency in Finland in 2018, he looks to expand his practice in visual arts to deepen his reflections on popular culture, myths and the subconscious in relation to the experience of afro-descendant persons in Western society.