This event kicks off with talks from exhibition co-curators, Nuno Porto, Nya Lewis and Titilope Salami, along with select participating artists from the exhibition Sankofa: African Routes, Canadian Roots. Join in the reflection on the exhibition and a discussion of the themes and inspiration behind it. Speeches will be followed by a final celebration of Sankofa with the curators, artists, and community members.

Curator Bios

Nuno Porto, MOA Curator, Africa + South America, holds a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Coimbra, Portugal, where he taught anthropology until 2011. In Central Portugal, he worked on issues related to literacy acquisition, religion and visual culture. In Cape Verde and Angola his work has focused on issues related to colonialism, science, museology, photography, material, visual and digital cultures, and contemporary African art.

Nya Lewis is a Vancouver-based independent curator, and MFA candidate at OCAD. A writer, activist, and community organizer committed to building just and inclusive cultural and social infrastructure in Vancouver – her work celebrates the strength and perseverance of Black Canadian culture, history and its diversity.

Titilope Salami, guest curator for the exhibition Sankofa: African Routes, Canadian Roots, is an artist, curator and lecturer of visual arts at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. Her group exhibitions include Jubilation (2014), Diversiform (2018), Strength of Women (2019), and On and On (2019), and she participated in the performance Red Day (2017) with Jelili Atiku. Salami is currently conducting her Ph.D. research in the history and policies of West African museums at the University of British Columbia.