Join us for the virtual event Fully Known: Cotton Production, Black History, and the Canadian Experience as part of the History is Rarely Black or White speaker series hosted by the Agnes Etherington Art Centre.
Charmaine Nelson and Shannon Price join curator Jason Cyrus to investigate the ways in which cotton production in the United States forever changed the landscape of Canadian diversity. Together they tell the stories of Black people on both sides of the border by connecting the Victorian cotton industry with the Underground Railroad and settlement in Canada while addressing the related colonial legacies that still affect Black Canadian life today.
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.
Charmaine Nelson
Charmaine is the first tenured Black professor of art history in Canada. Nelson’s research interests include the visual culture of slavery, race and representation, Black Canadian studies and African Canadian Art History as well as critical theory, post-colonial studies, Black feminist scholarship, Transatlantic Slavery Studies and Black Diaspora Studies. The author of seven books, Nelson has given over 260 lectures and talks across Canada and the USA, Mexico, Europe, and the Caribbean.
Shannon Price
Shannon is the Curator of the Buxton National Historic Site & Museum. She is also a Storyteller and participant in historical re-enactments which brings the history of Buxton and the Underground Railroad to life for many groups both here and further afield. Prince is a descendant of the early fugitive families that came to Canada for freedom and opportunity. As such, she brings insight and respect and a love for this chapter in our heritage.
