Mir Asoh runs The Black Mosaic, a virtual hub for Black creatives, for the Creativity Everything lab. They have written this update:
This past fall, The Black Mosaic celebrated our one year anniversary. When we first launched in fall of 2020, I didn’t anticipate where this would go and where it would take us. Overall, it has truly been a beautiful experience. There has been so much collaborative art-sharing amongst the creatives within The Black Mosaic – and honestly the art speaks for itself. Below this text are just a few examples of some art created by participants.
Upon reflection, I like to think of the past year as Phase 1 of The Black Mosaic. Through our themed sessions, we humbly and authentically crafted creative and personal relationships with one another across space and time.
This year, we are looking at Phase 2 of The Black Mosaic: As an ensemble, we will be working together to design and actualize a zine – for us and by us. Many of us within The Black Mosaic are passionate about zine making, so I figured it would be a poetic way to come together, express ourselves, and document/archive/chronicle our artistry and journey together as a collective. In Phase 1, the themed sessions for The Black Mosaic were happily unrecorded, and the magic remained within the (virtual) rooms during times and spaces they took place. With the zine, my hope is that each participant can enjoy a token to remember their experience with The Black Mosaic; a token that they, themselves, helped to craft, design and publish.
Above: image by Carvela Lee.
Above: image by Harry Clarke. “Harrybyharry is the moniker of Harry Clarke, a visual collage and video artist. Clarke uses the medium of collage to create new realities where their understandings of the world can visually materialize. Their perceptions have largely been shaped by their experience navigating eurocentric spaces as a queer black person with mental health issues; the images they create are fantastical and nightmarish representations of western standards and what it may look like to move towards a reality that prioritizes the ethereal.”
Above: Two images by James Yeboah. “I am a Ghanian Canadian artist that has worked within sculpture, painting and fibre arts. Most of my work is self taught and I have spent my time in isolation learning how to weave, resin sculpt and digital paint. My work has extensively talked about ways to recontextualize Black masculinity through facilitating space for discussion on Black pain, joy and accountability for misogynoir.”
Above: Two images by Marv Houngbo. “Both images are self portraits taken in my old room in Toronto. Most of my work during this time was about exploring my self identity.”
Above: Two images by Shiann Nias. “Shiann Nias (she/her) is a fourth year New Media student, self-described surreal animator, and Toronto based art human. She specializes in animation, digital illustration, and creative coding. She is also the brainchild and “human vessel” for the anarchistgalaxy; a world beyond Earth, and product of Shiann’s love of body horror, street art, data art, and science fiction. Together with the monsters chilling in space, Shiann tries to understand being human.”
We are so proud to be working with these amazing artists, and look forward to seeing what they do next!