By Will McGuirk

As Ontario moves along into the third stage of reopening its heartening to see galleries are now able to welcome people inside. The VAC kicks open its doors July 30 with Fossilized Sunshine featuring Wally Dion, Lisa Jackson, Camille Turner and Camal Pirbhai, Larissa Sansour, Saheer Zazai, and Timothy Yannick Hunter.

“Employing Afro, Indigenous, Palestinian, and Afghan-Futurisms, the 7 artists within Fossilized Sunshine use the vernacular of these counterfuturisms to explain how both traditional and contemporary artifacts can drive the imagining of culturally empowered, non-Eurocentric potential realities. While also including conventional futuristic tropes such as of visionary technology, space travel, and science-fictive elements, each included project focuses on ethnoarchaeology to determine empowered futures -- contextualizing current and recent historical objects through the observation of respective cultures. Conflating past, present, and future, the artists include a range of archaeological materials as catalysts to (re)invent diverging future realities severed from Western hegemony.”

Thats from the PR, and yeah, no idea but it is intriguing. Although small the VAC does present big ideas in a way no other gallery seems too, and this one fits that bill.

The exhibition will run July 30 - Sept 23, 2021, within the VAC’s main two downstairs galleries, curated by Matthew Kyba. The upstairs loft space will also open Public Space featuring Nicolas Fleming, Sahar Te, Petrina Ng, and Josh Vettivelu.