York’s Pan Am Stadium is not the only element of the Pan Am/Parapan Am Games that lives on.
Symbols of Endurance is an upcoming exhibition of Trinidadian artist Marlon Griffith’s recent work, opening at the Art Gallery of York University on September 23. Griffith was also the creative force behind the Ring of Fire procession, a Toronto procession that was commissioned by the AGYU for the Parapan Am games at the beginning of August.
Serving as a continuation and a precursor to the Ring of Fire, Symbols of Endurance retells the iconography, prolonging the life and mythology of the original procession. Rather than retelling the event, Emelie Chhangur, assistant director and curator at the AGYU, realized a moving procession is in a different context than a static gallery, and instead attempted to create a movement while telling the story.
“I wanted to move through that, with the placement [of the pieces].There’s this idea that the procession is actually passing through the gallery walls, that no matter how hard the gallery tries, it can never contain the energy and the emotional impact of that day for people,” says Chhangur.
The procession Ring of Fire was a joint collaborative process of Torontonian artists.Working with the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, capoeira athletes, young spoken word artists from Jane and Finch, Malvern and Regent Park communities, as well as different disability groups that were passionate about the arts, the project was two years in the making.
With all costumes and masks handmade in Toronto, the procession worked in similar fashion to a carnival. Griffith, a carnival and processions maker himself, realized how exclusive traditional carnivals were to persons of disability, and began to focus on different kinds of movements and costumes for his participants.
Using the seven grandfather teachings of the Anishinaabe, wisdom, love, respect, bravery, honesty, humility, and truth, each symbol was visualized into two costumes, a massive representation known as a Sentinel, and a speaker known as an Orator. All participants, including volunteers who signed up to the event beforehand, wore custom expressive masks. The elements of these costumes were then stored and are now displayed in the exhibition.
Symbols of Endurance is split into three distinct areas and embodies the metaphor of a plant. It starts by planting the seed through a showing of Griffith’s original sketches, swatches for the costumes, and colour palettes. As the gallery progresses, the elements of the procession are manipulated and exaggerated within the gallery walls.
The second stage of the exhibition is a projected showing of the procession itself, with songs recorded by musicians of the grassroots organization Alternative Roots, and the spoken word pieces from young poets.
“The audio and video are out of sync, but if you allow yourself the time, there will be moments where you see a spoken word poet reciting and hear it at the same time. Or hear the drums and see it pass you by. I like that sort of time displacement. I feel this gives this room a different sense of time,” adds Chhangur.
The exhibition ends with a macro, bird’s eye view of the procession, filmed with a drone flying above the participants. As the gallery metaphorically starts with a seed being planted in the earth, the plant grew to ultimately end up in the sky, showing an aerial view of what Chhangur describes as a grand event.
“I don’t know what it was, but there was something about the energy in this procession that brought out a real caring-ness in the city of Toronto,” she says.
Filled with symbolism, metaphors, and cross cultural references to humanity, Symbols of Endurance is free and open to all, regardless of if you’ve seen the original procession that inspired this exhibition. The exhibition is open until December 6, with an opening reception on September 23.
Victoria Goldberg, Arts Editor
Featured video created by Michael Zusev, Photography Editor
