A Smile Split by the Stars

Join us for an afternoon of talks and conversation with Katherine McKittrick and Nasrin Himada, connected to the collaborative exhibition A Smile Split by the Stars: An Experiment by Katherine McKittrick. The exhibition centres nourbeSe philip's moving poem "Meditations on the Declension of Beauty by the Girl with the Flying Cheek-bones," exploring themes of black girlhood, black femininity, and revolutionary aesthetics that challenge colonial narratives and re-code the promises of modernity.

This event will feature McKittrick delivering a lecture that engages with the exhibition's central themes and philip's transformative work. Himada, one of the curatorial contributors, will offer remarks providing more context and insight into the project's development and significance as it relates to their overall curatorial practice.

Following these presentations, McKittrick and Himada will discuss, in a moderated conversation, the intersections of their work with the exhibition's exploration of black feminist thought, poetry and visual art, and the reimagining of aesthetic and political possibilities. 

How can you participate? Join us in person or online by registering for the Zoom Meeting or watching live on YouTube.

Have questions? Send them to info.4@concordia.ca

Katherine McKittrick is Professor of Gender Studies and Canada Research Chair in Black Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. She authored Dear Science and Other Stories (DUP, 2021), and Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle (UMP, 2006). She also edited and contributed to Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis (DUP, 2015). Recent projects include the limited-edition boxset, Trick Not Telos (2023) and the limited-edition hand-made book, Twenty Dreams (2024).

Nasrin Himada is a Palestinian curator and writer. Their practice is heavily influenced by their long-term friendships and by their many on-going collaborations with artists, filmmakers and poets. Nasrin’s ongoing project, For Many Returns, experiments with writing as an act dictated by love, and typifies their current curatorial interests, which foreground desire as transformation, and liberation through many forms. Nasrin currently holds the position of Associate Curator at Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University.