We Live As We Die is an art exhibition highlighting the different ways in which Black communities in North America process grief and view death as a celebration of life. The exhibition was on display at Ottawa’s Gallery 101 from Sept. 23 to Oct. 22.
Sakinna Gairey, the exhibition’s curator, worked with six Black artists to create an understanding of death in different cultures. The artists used mediums such as painting, photography and videography to showcase the range of emotions associated with grief.
The exhibition allows viewers to step into the everyday reality of a Black or racialized person in Canada to experience the ways in which grief and oppression impact different aspects of their lives.
After contacting the Ottawa Black Art Kollective and Gallery 101 with the prospect of creating an exhibition, Gairey researched thanatology—the study of death—and its relationship to grief in Black cultures.
Gairey said she used grief as the main concept for the exhibition, drawing from experiences from the “cultural proximity” to death in her Black community.
“Having to live with and grieve [for] people who died when they shouldn’t have, but whose lives are still completed and whose lives and deaths still matter … definitely shaped this exhibit,” she said.
When creating the exhibition, Gairey said she grappled with her feelings and ideations about her personal experiences with grief. She wanted to create art that was meaningful, honest and true to herself and the people she has lost, she said.
Gairey reached out to artists Ayo Tsalithaba, Delali Cofie, Jalen Frizzell, Kalkidan Assefa, Mariama Tani and Yasin Osman to help with the exhibition. All six were tackling similar subjects of grief and death in their art prior to their contributions to the exhibition.
Assefa, who’s also a member of the Ottawa Black Art Kollective, said he was inspired by Gairey’s idea for the exhibition.
“There’s a lot of talent and artists involved with this [exhibition] that have important things to say,” Assefa said. “There are a lot of strong young Black voices coming out of the community [and] doing a lot of work in a lot of different mediums.”
“It’s not a subject matter that’s really discussed or approached on a regular basis in our everyday lives,” he said.
Rose said the cohesiveness of the different works placed throughout the exhibition added another layer of complexity to the space.
“What I like about it is it’s not overloaded,” he said. “There’s a restrained number of works so you can take them all and try to connect them with the other ones in the show.”
Gairey said she hopes gallery visitors saw her vision to create a space where they could learn to understand the complexities of grief.
“Death and grief shouldn’t be a thing we run from, but rather something we acknowledge,” she said.
Featured image by Sadeen Mohsen.
