Chelsy Monie received a BA in Communications and Art History at Concordia University (2018), and is also an artist interested in identity and representation. Her work strives to portray ideas of ‘reality’ and ‘the mundane’ as beautiful and unique cultural experiences. She is also the founder of Ubuntu Talks, a platform that promotes positive representations of Black bodies in the media. She is currently working at Gallery 1957 in Accra, Ghana.
Art & Africa: Africans as Critical Producers and Consumers of Art
2018 EAHR Researcher: Chelsy Monie
Introduction
Art & Africa: Africans as Critical Producers and Consumers of Art
Reseacher: Chelsy Monie
Residency Co-ordinator: Kim Glassman
Supervising Librarian: Jenna Dufour
This bibliography was completed by Concordia undergraduate student Chelsy Monie, as an extensive open source reference tool that promotes critical engagement with issues of ethnic and cultural representation within the visual arts, further instigating a conversation that opens up fundamental spaces for communities that are often misrepresented and/or erased. As the 2018 undergraduate Researcher-in-Residence, Monie specifically focused on locating these critical spaces for Africans in art history and demonstrating that Africans are both the creators and consumers of their own art practices.
All hyperlinked resources are either available for consultation in the Concordia Library (catalogue or online), or listed in WorldCat for your research needs. Sections included in this annotated bibliography include:
- Books
- Articles
- Journals
- Curators/Artists
- Festivals/Biennials
- Further Reading
Monie further expanded upon the collected research with a photographic series, Voiceless Utterance, exhibited at the VAV Gallery (Concordia, VA Building) and the Vitrine (Concordia, EV Building). The series also inspired an accompanying speaker event, which featured presentations by four African artists working in Canada. For more information on her exhibition and panel discussion, visit ethnoculturalarts.com.
Explore the annotated bibliography.
Voiceless Utterance Exhibition
Voiceless Utterance (2018): Installation view of artwork created by Monie as an artistic response to her research during her residency. (Concordia, EV Building Vitrine.)
Residency Event: A panel discussion with four African artists and curators currently living in Canada (left to right): Chelsy Monie, Soukayna, Kosisochukwu Nnebe, and Nènè Myriam Konaté, in conjunction with Monie’s photographic series, Voiceless Utterance, featured as part of Galerie VAV Gallery’s exhibition, Resonance // Vernissage.
Accompanying the bibliography is a photographic series entitled, Voiceless Utterance (2018) created by Monie as an artistic response to her research during her residency.
The series brings together nine women from across the African continent to represent the ‘new’ Venus, one that is far from her typical position as an archetypal symbol of the ideal - the supposed pinnacle of classical Western femininity.
By digitally smearing away their mouths, the artist does not remove their voices, but instead emphasizes their silence. Their erotic bodies simultaneously repel and attract viewers, inviting visitors to think critically about the consumption of contemporary African artistic creations in spaces that are fundamentally Western.