Artist Oluseye Ogunlesi builds a Black Ark to explore Canada’s colonial history

By Betty Wood, The Spaces

What looks like the hull of a long-lost ship has appeared at Toronto’s Ashbridges Bay – a haunting installation by Nigerian-Canadian artist Oluseye Ogunlesi exploring Canada’s ‘forgotten’ role in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Dubbed Black Ark, the 12-ft-tall immersive sculptural installation is presented as part of the Luminato Toronto Arts Festival. It’s conceived as a ‘symbolic home’ to commemorate the survivors of slavery, with its form evoking both the pitched silhouette of a chapel and the bow of a ship.

Most Canadians are familiar with the Trans-Atlantic slave trade when viewed through the lens of the US and subsequent civil war, and children are taught about the Underground Railroad at school – the secret network which transported enslaved African Americans from the States to ‘freedom’ in Upper Canada.

But the pivotal role Canadian shipyards had, building over 60 ships to transport stolen people from Africa to the American continent, is less well known. Or that ports such as Halifax hosted slavers ships (according to The Coast, the last ship to transport Africans to slavery was actually helmed by a Nova Scotian). Ogunlesi’s architectural instillation illuminates and invites viewers to reflect on this uncomfortable part of Canada’s colonial history.

See more images of this beautiful and important art.

Earlier this year, a different type of art made its way to the Library of Congress.

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