Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

  A Caribbean Art Exhibition Of Epic Proportion Opens Friday At The AGO.  Only the Hoopla Is Missing By Stephen Weir Curse the Toronto Covid shutdown.  This Friday there should be balloons, fireworks, and revellers in the street to mark the opening of Caribbean-centric art exhibition the likes Canada has not seen before. But, the reality of the age is that on Friday morning the  Art Gallery of Ontario  will quietly open its Dundas Street front doors on the exhibition  Fragments of Epic Memory , a detailed exploration of the complex history of the Caribbean in this made-in-Toronto major exhibition.   The big show is an amalgam of a huge collection of historic photographs of 19 th  and early 20 th  century life in the Caribbean displayed beside contemporary Caribbean Canadian artists including  Ebony Patterson, Rodell Warner, Sandra Brewster  and  Zak Ové.  The black and white photographs many dating back to the 19 th  ...

Exhibition has a month ending run at the Pilot Photographer, Artist and Filmmaker Jenny Baboolal Will Be Forever Young. By Herman Silochan   A lovely little art show and reception at the Pilot Bar on Cumberland Street, just off Yonge, in Toronto was held on Tuesday night.  Missed it? Show was stay up until the end of August. Jenny Baboolal  the Trinidad artist and photographer showed off some of her delightful collection. Born in Trinidad but now living in Toronto, she has been amassing quite a portfolio, and of which many hanging in the Pilot are for sale to the public. At the Pilot - artist  Jenny Baboolal - photo Herman Silochan   Here is a sample of what was shown on display Tuesday night. She has concentrated on  Children in Carnival , the portraiture transferred to canvas and which makes for excellent display. All the subjects are from Carnival in Trinidad, not the Toronto Carnival. In two of the photos, are of the images on the wall with some fans in...

  The delay in the game is over -  Esmaa Mohamoud 's sculpture   exhibition to stay open till October 24.    Play in the Face of Certain Defeat  re-examines understandings of contemporary Blackness. A sculpture exhibition by Black Artist Esmaa Mohamoud originally scheduled to open in Hamilton in March of this year was postponed just days after its initial launch date because of Covid restrictions. The show did reopen earlier this month just as it was originally scheduled to to close. Good news though for art lovers desperate to see this  wildly popular 30-year-old artist’s unique sports influenced sculpture show, the Art Gallery of Hamilton (AGH) just announced that the Esmaa Mohamoud: To Play in the Face of Certain Defeat show has been extended until October 24, 2021. There is no charge to see the exhibition for the next 10-days - AGH has waved its entrance fee to the gallery for the month of August. "This exhibition will be temporarily closed on A...

A Day of Chef Selwyn’s Caribbean Food Magic Outdoors at Jamaica Canadian Association Summer officially ends in just 30 days, but the hot weather celebration of Caribbean Canadian foods continues this Saturday thanks to Award winning chef and food stylist, Selwyn Richards. On Saturday The Jamaica Canadian Association (JCA) and the Art of Catering will be showcasing his cooking at an all-day outdoor gourmet Caribbean Jamaican fete. It's billed as Chef Selwyn Taste! And, from noon until 8pm outdoors at the CJA headquarters in North York people will be able enjoy his many dishes at three food stations! "Carnival is over for this year, but, people aren't ready to stop enjoying the flavours of the Islands," explained Chef Selwyn. " I promise to re-introduce Torontonians to the riotous tantalizing dishes that truly are authentically Caribbean." "We aren't giving up on summer just yet," he continued " People are going to be jumping and saying Wo...

Slave Clothes On The Mink Mile? Only on Emancipation Day   Photos and story by Stephen Weir:  According to well-known activist, organizer and owner of Canada’s largest diversity bookstore,  Itah Sadu  what happened on Sunday on Bloor Street was neither a demonstration nor a parade.  Maybe not but the Mas models, actors in chains wearing slave clothing and children holding Black Power signs walked the  Mink Mile  on Sunday afternoon – it was an August 1 st   Emancipation Day  to remember.   “No, this was an act of love,” explained Sadu. “ We billed it as  E mancipation on Bloor  -- an animation of the  Bloor Street Cultural Corridor  from Yonge and Bloor (aka the Mink Mile) to Christie and Bloor adding to the all the terrific August First Emancipation Day activities here in Toronto.” Actors in slave clothing carry their chains  Yonge & Bloor in Toronto It started after lunch at one of the busiest intersections...

  Meanwhile at Scarborough Town Centre                        NDP leader MPP Andrea Horwath tours Carnival Flavours with two Mas Models                      - photo by Herman Silochan    Following the late afternoon ending of the Emancipation Day happening along Bloor Street, many of the participants piled into cars and made their way to the Scarborough Town Centre for the windup of the last Toronto Caribbean Carnival event scheduled for 2022.   Called  Carnival Flavours ,  the three-day fete was held outdoors at the  Scarborough Town Centre .  Pan. Calypso. Dance. Food.  Costumes. Every form of Carnival Arts was on stage performing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings on the mall’s huge parking lot. Carib Beer, one of the Carnival Flavours had a large beer tent on site.   “We had an incredible turn-out, and for the ...