Toronto Biennial of Art 2024: Precarious Joys
September 21 – December 1, 2024
Curated by Dominique Fontaine and Miguel A. López
The Toronto Biennial of Art is back with their 2024 edition! This 10-week event happens every two years with sites across the city, activating the work of various artists across the city.
We are happy to share that Sandra Brewster’s new installation Make Trouble is on view as part of the biennial at The Auto Building, 158 Sterling Road, 9th floor.
Make Trouble (2024) is a newly commissioned four-panel photo-based installation. The work stems from Sandra’s ongoing research on being and place. It draws inspiration from Fred Moten’s 2007 lecture, “Black Optimism / Black Operation,” and in particular, references the Child Development Group of Mississippi’s freedom song, “Da da da da.” For this installation, Sandra utilizes personal childhood photographs to construct an archival narrative, encapsulating Moten’s idea that “these children are the voices of the future in the past, the voices of the future in our present.”
Sandra Brewster works across various mediums, including drawing, video, photo-based works, and installation, to explore themes of identity, representation, and movement, highlighting the importance of documentation in place-making and cultural narratives. She manipulates old photographs, centring the people within them, and her use of metaphor transforms landscapes. Sandra, who is of Guyanese descent, often references Caribbean migration in her work, implying the formation of an identity that spans multiple geographies and times that embodies a diasporic character.
Commissioned by the Toronto Biennial of Art and made possible with the generous support of the Women Leading Initiative.
Learn more about the biennial here
