Knowable Archives, Unknowable Vessels
Over the course of 2022 Artspace Gallery has been facilitating the Black Creative Research Residency, featuring Artist in Residence Shaya Ishaq and Research Assistants Daysha Loppie, Nala Haileselassie, and Carianne Shakes.
In collaboration with the Design + Technology Lab, Shaya and the research assistants are combining historical research and cutting edge technology to create an exhibition that explores the material histories of Black creative knowledge production and optical allyship.
Funding support for this initiative is provided through the Student Initiative Fund’s Black Initiative Fund and from the generous support of our patrons.
INTRODUCING
BLACK CREATIVE RESEARCH
“Our residency begins by looking at two important figures from the history of ceramics. David Drake was an enslaved potter who engraved his name and poetry on his pottery at a time where his literacy was illegal. Josiah Wedgwood was a British potter & industrialist who mass produced pendants for The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The work of David Drake and Josiah Wedgwood have been archived for very different yet intersecting reasons. Both had a deep connection to clay in their lifetime yet their material output and the context in which they created was worlds apart from one another. We have been thinking through the material objects both left behind, the potency of them then and now and what they can teach us about our contemporary moment.
Many historians have done the work to recount the story of both figures but from my perspective, I see a generative potential in bringing their narratives together through a speculative lens. As a researcher and artist who works with clay, I was drawn to these two people as a means of making links to our own contemporary moment that we currently find ourselves in. Themes related to abolition, materiality, performative and optical allyship, “the algorithm of anti-racism” as Dr.Joy James would say, and the memetic nature of Black suffering, were a starting point for us when it came to diving into this work.
Both Drake and Wedgwood interfaced with the means of production but from very different positions of power and agency. Dave threw one pot at a time whereas Josiah revolutionized the industrial production of ceramic ware. What would it mean for us to shift the means of production through our speculative research creation process? How can a pot embody refusal?
By doing this research and unearthing questions along the way, we are bringing forth their memories and entangled legacies of material culture. This must be done with great care for ourselves as researchers and reverence for the figures at the centre of our work. It takes great sensitivity and nuance to hold their realities parallel to one another but doing so, we’ve created a roadmap to unpacking some of the historical material baggage of craft and the significantly loaded objects created by David Drake and Josiah Wedgwood. Ultimately, by shedding light on the memory of David Drake, we are highlighting how integral Black creative knowledge was to the landscape of craft in North America.”
- Shaya Ishaq, Artist in Residence
OUR RESEARCH
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David Drake who was an enslaved potter who engraved his name and poetry on his pottery during a time when his literacy was illegal.
David “Dave” Drake was born around 1800 in the Edgefield District of South Carolina. Before attaining emancipation during the American Civil War, Drake lived as an enslaved artisan in this region. Until his passing between the years 1870-1880 (exact date unknown) (Goldberg and Goldberg, 2017), Drake shaped jars, jugs and crocks into impressive vessels of Black resistance.
Drake, alongside many other enslaved artisans, played an integral role in the industrialization of alkaline-glazed stoneware pottery during the 1800s (Goldberg and Goldberg, 2017).
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Josiah Wedgwood was a British potter & industrialist who mass produced pendants for The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
Josiah Wedgwood was the thirteenth child born to a struggling potter in 1730 in Burslem, England (Crockett, 2019). The craft was perceived as undignified during this period; however, Wedgewood followed in his father’s footsteps. Through his lifetime, he experimented with a variety of clays, heat, and time of firing to produce different kinds of pottery (Crockett, 2019). He is responsible for many innovations in industrial ceramics and marketing.
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RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
What ideologies influenced the formal design of the medallion?
What influences our perception of this imagery today?
What does the medallion tell us about how Black people were perceived at the time? Does this ideology continue today within contemporary allyship?
What are the implications of designing political messages for mass production?
What connections can be drawn between this history of marketing and this history of allyship? Does marketing and allyship go hand in hand
For which particular markets and demographics was the original medallion marketed to? Why did manufacturers target them in particular? Is there a continued pattern regarding who is most susceptible to this kind of marketing?
What is the quantifiable number of profits made from anti-slavery products and did this money ever go towards endeavours related to the abolition of the slave trade?
How has addressing or acknowledging Black suffering been used to market institutions +brands?
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The residents have been using the world-leading facilities at the Design + Technology LAB to produce artworks that explore the themes of the residency. Through material explorations the residents have been exploring ideas of transparency, opacity, archives, resistance, refusal and more.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE EXHIBITION
Swing by Artspace Gallery from Sept 7 - Oct 15 to see the exhibition!
We will also be premiering a documentary about he residency on Oct 1, 2022 as part of Nuit Blanche! Click here to add to calendar.
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Columbia Metropolitan Magazine. 2022. Blue and White - Columbia Metropolitan Magazine. [online] Available at: <https://columbiametro.com/article/blue-and-white/> [Accessed 27 August 2022].
Crockett, Zachary. “The 18th-Century Potter Who Became the World's First Tycoon.” The Hustle, June 30, 2020. https://thehustle.co/josiahwedgwood/.
Fennell, Christopher C. “Innovation, Industry, and African-American Heritage in Edgefield, South Carolina.” Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage 6, no. 2 (2017): 55–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/21619441.2017.1345105.
Goldberg, Arthur F., and Deborah A. Goldberg. “The Expanding Legacy of the Enslaved Potter-Poet David Drake.” Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage 6, no. 3 (2017): 243–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/21619441.2017.1385953.
Hunt, T., 2021. Josiah Wedgwood & Anti-Slavery: How The Radical Potter Had An Activist Streak | HistoryExtra. [online] Historyextra.com. Available at: <https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/josiah-wedgwood-english-pottery-potter/> [Accessed 27 August 2022].
Lagowski, J., 1980. Josiah Wedgewood, An Early Industrial Chemist. Journal of Chemical Education, 57(7), p.465.
Noyes, C. “David Drake: Poet, Potter, Slave”. Art and Object. Feb. 4, 2020.
https://www.artandobject.com/news/david-drake-poet-potter-slave
Meet the Team
Shaya Ishaq - Artist in Residence
Shaya Ishaq (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and writer currently based in Montreal. In her practice, she delves into themes related to contemporary craft discourse, design anthropology, (afro)futurism and diaspora. As a first-generation Kenyan-Ugandan connected to a lineage of weavers, she is devoted to the materiality and the creolization of form.
Shaya is often called to textiles and clay as a starting point to create wearable art, jewelry adornments, and installations that incite participatory engagement. Through the meditative processes of weaving, felting, and handmade ceramics, she explores the nuances of her positionality and the liminality of rites of passage which often leads to sculptural textile and ceramic works.
Her curiosity about the poetics and politics of space informs her interests in creating immersive environments that embrace the emergent possibilities of spatial design. This allows her to explore how we relate and hold space for each other in space across differences.
Shaya has studied at Concordia University with a focus on Fibres & Material Practices, NSCAD University as well as Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine. Shaya has been a research fellow of the Textiles and Materiality Research Cluster as part of the Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture, and Technology.
The Research Assistants
In November 2021, a call for three Black creative research assistants from The Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University was announced. Candidates were offered a paid opportunity to work collaboratively with Ishaq while taking advantage of The Creative School’s industry leading facilities.
Many applicants from a variety of programs within The Creative School applied, but in the end, three students were selected for their creativity, tenacity, and connection to the themes of the project. The chosen candidates be found below.
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Daysha Loppie
(she/her)
Daysha is a Toronto-born freelance journalist currently pursuing a degree in journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University. Daysha’s practice works to spread narratives that legitimize the revolution and inspire a better future. She recently won the 2021 Dell Bell Memorial Award and the Len Coates Memorial Award for her work, which focuses on resistance in arts and culture in Toronto through abolition-centered innovation. Daysha is determined to one day run her own publication.
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Nala Haileselassie
(she/her)
Nala is a multidisciplinary artist from Tkaronto completing her BFA in Film Studies at Toronto Met University. Working from the lineage of Black feminist film and experimental documentary, her research is focused on the living archive of Black people globally in relationship to documentary ethics, authorship and representation. Her current body of work explores cultural and collective memory, and the relation between the two as a child of migration. Nala looks to rework narratives surrounding migrant and diasporic identities which defy borders and temporal relations. She wishes to use her practice as a tool for collaboration, discussion and liberation.
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Carianne Shakes
(she/her)
Carianne is a Toronto-born multidisciplinary media artist and researcher. Her work employs intersectional, Black feminist, and anti-capitalist theories to explore nuanced negotiations between race, class and gender. Carianne recently completed her B.A. in Creative Industries at TMU. As a student, Carianne formed initiatives aimed at increasing BIPOC representation within the School of Creative Industries, resulting in her achieving the Dennis Mock Student Leadership Award and Creative Industries Outstanding Community Engagement Award. During this time she worked with Dr. Cheryl Thompson and Shana Almeida, along with the Canada Council for the Arts, and Black Artists Network and Dialogue. Carianne is inspired by Black feminist thinkers and hopes to use her work to continue addressing intersectional forms of oppression.
KNOWABLE ARCHIVES,
UNKNOWABLE VESSELS
an exhibition by
Shaya Ishaq, Carianne Shakes,
Daysha Loppie, & Nala Haileselassie
Exhibition: September 7 - Oct 15, 2022
Gallery Hours: Wednesday - Saturday 1 - 6 PM
Opening Reception: Friday, September 9th @ 7pm
Nuit Blanche Documentary Premiere: Oct 1, 2022 7 am - 7 pm
