Michaela Bridgemohan | soot stain on the pillowcase

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Michaela Bridgemohan, "soot stain on the pillowcase"

Designed by Rees Morgan.

Opening Reception: Friday, October 13, 7:00pm

The Fort Gallery is pleased to present Michaela Bridgemohan’s new pop-up exhibition soot stain on the pillowcase at Swallowfield Farm. Bridgemohan’s immersive exhibition presents her artistic research in how Afro-diasporic knowledge informs identity, belonging and connection to land within the unceded territories of the Syilx Okanagan People and beyond.

Engaging with the Afro-diasporic dialogues in BC, the exhibition is fittingly positioned in Fort Langley, a community that still identifies itself as the “birthplace of BC,” with a nod to “father of British Columbia,” James Douglas’ mixed race lineage. soot stain on the pillowcase complicates narratives of black and mixed-race identities in Canada and asserts their connection to the land.

Resonating with these hidden histories, Bridgemohan’s work gestures to the absent body. Haunted by traces of a woman’s presence–a hair left behind, a soot stain, an imprint– the exhibition invites viewers into a slept-in abode. Bridgemohan’s exhibition reflects on the “in-between” state of being which characterizes diasporic existence.

Indigo dye which permeates Bridgemohan’s work becomes a potent metaphor for diasporic identity and adaptation: “uprooted from the land and turned into powder, when dissolved, Indigo becomes a greenish-copper hue and then stains blue when oxidized. As someone who belongs to two racial groups, I see the conceptual connection between identity and Indigo.”

Bridgemohan’s exhibition conjures an intimate space of encounter by invoking domestic spaces: visitors pass through curtains made of hair dipped in sugar-cane and enter indigo-dyed mosquito nets, laced with beeswax gems and pearls. An end table holds a salve with allspice and wildrose. By referring to rituals of connection, care and home-making Bridgemohan explores what it means to belong, adapt and make home as a person existing between racial identities.

soot stain on the pillowcase runs from October 13-22 at Swallowfield Farm, 7296 Telegraph Trail Langley, BC. Bridgemohan’s exhibition will be activated by a series of events throughout the ten day run. All events are free and open to the public.

All-ages, hands-on workshop with the artist: Sunday, October 15, 2:00pm, RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/indigo-dye-workshop-with-michaela-bridgemohan-tickets-718160727067?aff=oddtdtcreator

Artist Talk and Tour: Sunday October 22, 2:00pm