CURATED BY ELLIOTT RAMSEY

The exhibition celebrates the expansive sensibility of the works in the Wedge Collection, Canada’s largest privately-owned collection committed to championing Black artists, established by Dr. Kenneth Montague in 1997. Centring the familial alongside the familiar, the exhibition embraces concepts of community, identity, and power, and recognizes the complex strength, beauty, vulnerability, and diversity of Black life. The exhibition features such established names as Horace Ové, James Barnor and Gordon Parks, as well as emerging talents such as Texas Isaiah and Arielle Bobb-Willis.

AS WE RISE: PHOTOGRAPHY FROM THE BLACK ATLANTIC, selections from the Wedge Collection, is organized by Aperture and curated by Elliott Ramsey.

The accompanying book, As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic (Aperture, 2021), a 184-page catalogue and As We Rise: Sounds from the Black Atlantic (Aperture, 2023), a limited-edition vinyl record, both published by Aperture, are available to purchase in the Gallery Shop and through Saatchi Store Online.

Elliott Ramsey is Curator of The Polygon Gallery in Vancouver, Canada. Ramsey holds a Master of Arts in Comparative Media Arts (2015) from Simon Fraser University. Ramsey is an alumnus of the Association of Art Museum Curators’ Professional Alliance for Curators of Colour, and has sat on numerous panels, advisories, and art juries including the Sobey Award, VIVA Award, Portfolio Prize, and Capture Photography Festival, among various other committees.