Racquel Rowe
January 11 - March 8, 2025
Opening Reception January 11th, 5-7pm
Drawing inspiration from Dionne Brand's A Map to the Door of No Return, The Centre of the World Was the Beach is a meditation on migration, memory, and identity. Anchored by themes of diasporic connection, domestic spaces, and culinary rituals, the exhibition explores how landscapes—both physical and interior—become sites of cultural continuity and transformation.
Through a series of video works, photographs, and intimate installations, the exhibition transforms the gallery into a living room, evoking the warmth and familiarity of shared histories. Each monitor plays a story, weaving together personal and collective narratives of the Caribbean diaspora, where migration reshapes domestic life, rituals anchor identity, and the beach becomes a symbolic threshold of loss and becoming.
This body of work reflects on the everyday as extraordinary—where food, family objects, and memory hold spaces of belonging, resistance, and renewal across generations.
Biography
Racquel Rowe is an interdisciplinary artist from the island of Barbados currently residing in Canada. She’s exhibited widely across Canada and holds an MFA from the University of Waterloo and a BA in History and Studio Art from the University of Guelph. Her practice is continuously influenced by many aspects of history, matrilineal family structures, diasporic communities, and her upbringing in Barbados. Her work includes performance, video, photo, painting, drawing and installation.
The artist would like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and Ed Video Media Arts Centre for their continued support.
Join us for the opening reception of The Centre of the World Was the Beach on Saturday, January 11th from 5-7pm.