246 seconds by Deion Squires-Rouse
It’s real because it happened
AJEURO ABALA + DEION SQUIRES-ROUSE
ARTIST RESIDENCY & IN-GALLERY EXHIBITION
Curated by Christina Oyawale
ONGOING IN-GALLERY EXHIBITION:
NOVEMBER 4TH - DECEMBER 4TH, 2021
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, 12-5PM
PAST RESIDENCY:
JULY 7 - JULY 30, 2021
IT'S REAL BC IT HAPPENED is an exhibition and artist residency featuring 4th-year IMA photo student, Deion Squires-Rouse and photo alum, Ajeuro Abala, curated by Artspace Gallery's summer Researcher in Residence Christina Oyawale.
Over the month of July 2021, Christina, Deion, and Ajeuro will collaborate in a workspace that provides them the space and resources to expand their research; creating an iterative exhibition that explores ideological frameworks around self-portraiture, perception, and what counts as “real”.
This residency and exhibition was envisioned and supported through the success of our 2020 BIPOC Artist Fund Fundraiser.
The BIPOC Artist Fund is a fundraising initiative to ensure that structurally excluded artists have financial support & compensation when exhibiting at Artspace Gallery.
is a Scarborough born visual artist, currently based out of Toronto. Working primarily with lens-based media, he attempts to communicate the link between the physical world and emotional consciousness, oftentimes drawing upon contemporary themes to incite a connection with his viewers. He is heavily influenced by his forays into the various diverse scenes of Toronto youth culture, fashion and his experiences as a young person of colour. In his future, he hopes to spread a message of personal freedom and continues to strive towards portraying people and their lives in their truest and most expressive forms.
DEION SQUIRES-ROUSE
AJEURO ABALA
Is a Toronto based photographer from Ottawa, Ontario with a BFA in Photography Studies from Ryerson University’s School of Image Arts. His practice contemplates human interaction with the world around us via the implications of our presence within it, or lack there-of. For Abala, interests in architecture, design and landscapes inform his thoughts on built and naturalistic environments – how we affect them, and how they in turn, affect us.
Research.
Ajeuro, Deion and Christina began conducting research to create a structure in the space that would act as a photographic installation. Inspired by Frank Ocean’s Endless and Irving Penn’s portraits, Ajeuro and Deion began using the structure as a backdrop to photograph themselves and plan to mount their images on it, as a final installation piece to be view in September 2021.
Time-lapsed footage of the installation structure being built
