This is an archived event from Culture Days 2025.
Images
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Courtesy of the artist -
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Photo by Josh Rille, courtesy of the artist.
Oluseye's "CROWN ACT"
In-person
Design History & heritage Interdisciplinary Sculpture & installationDate and time
This activity runs the duration of Culture Days.
Location
Niagara Pumphouse Arts Centre
247 Ricardo Street
Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON
Access
Free.
Offered in English.
About
Oluseye is a Nigerian Canadian artist who employes sculpture, performance and photography, to trace Blackness through its multifaceted migrations and manifestations. For the Ontario Culture Days festival, Oluseye has offered a collaborative community installation which responds to the Niagara’s history as a part of Underground Railroad— a network of escape routes through which enslaved African-Americans became free people. Oluseye shares that the braided hair patterns of enslaved people often contained escape maps, understood by the enslaved peoples but not by their captors. Inspired by these patterns, Oluseye will create a real-life path of remembrance using a young man’s hairstyle as a starting point. An enlarged photograph of the hairstyle has been divided into equal rectangular sections then printed onto concrete pavers. Participants will support the assembly of this path and at the centre, a single cowrie shell will wait to be discovered.
Presented in partnership with the Niagara Pumphouse Arts Centre.
This program is part of the Ontario Culture Days 2025 Creatives in Residence series.
Links
- Oluseye - Creatives in Residence onculturedays.ca
Organizer
Ontario Culture Days
Ontario Culture Days is a not-for-profit organization that celebrates artists and cultural groups in our communities.
The Ontario Culture Days Festival is an annual celebration of arts, culture and heritage taking place each fall across the province. Each year, we work with organizers of all disciplines to produce this province-wide festival. Organizers host programs throughout Ontario and invite the public to participate for free.
Ontario Culture Days lives at the local level. We support organizers from the smallest hamlets to the largest cities, while coordinating with other national and provincial Culture Days partners. We support the success of our sector colleagues through resources and network development, while highlighting the breadth and heterogeneity of Ontario’s arts and culture to the wider public.