Join us for the exciting online event Black Bodies, White Gold: Unpacking slavery and North American cotton production as part of the History is Rarely Black or White series hosted by the Agnes Etherington Art Centre.
This event will explore how the global thirst for cotton was fueled by the atrocities of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Join curator Jason Cyrus with Anna Arabindan-Kesson and Anne-Marie Guérin as they discuss the ways in which they harnessed science, historical research, and conversation to spotlight the Black life at the core of the Victorian cotton industry.
About the Speakers
Jason Cyrus
Jason analyses fashion and textile history to explore questions of identity, cultural exchange, and agency. He is the 2021 Isabel Bader Fellow in Textile Conservation and Research at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre. He has held research posts at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Royal Ontario Museum. In January 2020, he curated York University’s first fashion exhibition, ReFraming Gender.
Anna Arabindan-Kesson
Anna is an assistant professor of African American and Black Diasporic art with a joint appointment in the Department of Art and Archaeology and is a faculty fellow at Princeton University. Born in Sri Lanka, she completed undergraduate degrees in New Zealand and Australia and worked as a Registered Nurse in the UK before completing her PhD in African American Studies and Art History at Yale University.
Anne-Marie Guérin
Anne-Marie is an art conservator with a master's degree in art conservation from Queen's. Her main interests involve using art conservation, scientific analysis, and historical research to assist in the telling of stories aimed at decolonization. She has worked for several heritage and art institutions including the Montreal Museum of Fine Art and the Canadian Conservation Institute.
