As part of Yaniya Lee’s research residency
May 2, 2024 — 5:00 PM @ Artexte
As part of her research residency Wayside Archive at Artexte (summer 2021), writer and critic Yaniya Lee was interested by the artefacts and narratives of Black queer women, which rarely surface in archives and historical canons. The researcher was hoping to find the mouvement and temporary resting places of black archival presence, and to map a trajectory of dislocation. How does the Artexte collection hold back cultural production? What is contained that the labels do not name? What does archival work mean for black folks?
Buseje Bailey. reasons why we have to disappear every once in a while. A Black art history project by Yaniya Lee is a chapbook that collects a sample of documents, originally published between 1987 and 1993, related to the career of Black Canadian artist Buseje Bailey, documents which Yaniya Lee found in the Artexte documentary collection during her research residency. These are reprinted alongside a new interview with Buseje Bailey and a letter by artist Sandra Brewster. This is also a record of Yaniya Lee’s experimental approach to archival research which suggests a model for ways of study, curate, and write about Black Canadian art.
At this launch, discover Yaniya Lee’s research at Artexte.
Schedule of the event:
5:00 PM: event’s opening
5:30 PM: chapbook’s launch in presence of Yaniya Lee and bar opening
8:00 PM : end of the event
About the author:
Yaniya Lee is the author of Selected Writing on Black Canadian Art (2024). She has written about art for galleries, magazines and museums across Canada, and abroad.
As a PhD student in the Gender Studies department at Queen’s University, her research tracks Black creative practice and narratives of liberation across the nation, with the intention of building a critical archive that recognizes otherwise hidden Black Canadian art histories.
She teaches art writing and frequently works with collaborators on symposiums, programs, and workshops. Most recently: What does the land know? (Videographe, 2024), what it feels like is good enough (Archive, 2023); The Scream and the Whisper (Asia Art Archive, 2023); Black History Navigational Toolkit (Toronto Biennial of Art, 2022); From her world (The Blackwood, 2022); WhAt She SaId: Promiscuous References & Disobedient Care (Contingencies of Care, 2021); fractured horizon – a view from the body (Vtape, 2020); Bodies, Borders, Fields (Trinity Square Video, 2019); and Desire x Politics (Mercer Union, 2019).