On Identity: Liz Ikiriko in Conversation with June Clark, Dr. Kenneth Montague, and Bidemi Oloyede

Join Aperture for the final event in an online series celebrating As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic. Drawn from Dr. Kenneth Montague’s Wedge Collection in Toronto—a Black-owned collection dedicated to artists of African descent—As We Rise looks at the multifaceted ideas of Black life through the lenses of community, identity, and power. From intimate self-portraits and stylized fashion imagery to photographs of joyful Black youth, the perception of one’s identity can be revealed in a variety of ways in photography. In this event, moderated by Liz Ikiriko, June Clark, Dr. Kenneth Montague, and Bidemi Oloyede will discuss how the theme and concept of identity plays a key role in their work.

About As We Rise
As We Rise presents an exciting compilation of photographs from African diasporic culture. With over one hundred works by Black artists from Canada, the Caribbean, Great Britain, the United States, and South America, as well as throughout the African continent, this volume provides a timely exploration of Black identity on both sides of the Atlantic. Artists such as Stan Douglas, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Barkley L. Hendricks, Liz Johnson Artur, Seydou Keïta, Deana Lawson, Jamel Shabazz, Texas Isaiah, and Carrie Mae Weems touch on themes of agency, beauty, joy, belonging, subjectivity, and self-representation. Writings by Isolde Brielmaier, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi, Mark Sealy, Teka Selman, and Deborah Willis, among others, provide insight and commentary on this monumental collection.

Liz Ikiriko is a Tkaronto/Toronto-based, Nigerian Canadian artist and curator. She is curator of collections and contemporary engagement at the Art Gallery of York University, Toronto, and cocurator of the 13th Rencontres de Bamako/African Biennale of Photography, Mali (2022). Her most recent curatorial projects include Is Love a Synonym for Abolition? at Gallery 44, Toronto (2021); ___a lineage of transgression___ at ArtSpace Peterborough, Canada (2020); and The Break, The Wake, The Hold, The Breath at Circuit Gallery, Prefix ICA, Toronto (2019). Her writing appears in As We Rise works from the Wedge Collection published by Aperture, along with features in the British Journal of Photography, Public Journal, MICE Magazine, C Magazine, BlackFlash, and Akimbo. Ikiriko holds an MFA in criticism and curatorial practice from Ontario College of Art and Design University, Toronto.

Image: Bidemi Oloyede, Joanna Okoh, 2018; © and courtesy Bidemi Oloyede