February 1 to April 26, 2025
Charles Campbell: An Ocean to Livity
Rectangle and Triangle galleries
From the intimacy of a quiet inhalation to the distance between continents, Charles Campbell: An Ocean to Livity brings together metal and mixed media sculptures along with immersive and participatory multichannel audio installations. Tapping into the fecundity of the Black diasporic imagination, Campbell reconstructs and reinvents lost connections, lamenting the violent disruptions of the past while constructing a home for Black communities’ strength of being.
Central to the exhibition is Black Breath Archive, an installation of breath recordings from Toronto, Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, and Lower (BC) Mainland residents. Campbell strips away racial hierarchies and holds up Black breath as its own force—a carrier of ancestry and experience, a creator of community and something that, even in its most subtle presentation, changes the way we think, feel, and live.
Other artworks in this solo exhibition by Campbell that address breath and breathing are Breath Cycle 1 and Maroonscape 3: Finding Accompong. Breath Cycle 1 gestures towards a deeper past, connecting the oxygen we breathe to its production in symbiotic, multispecies communities of ancient lichen. Maroonscape 3: Finding Accompong derives its shape from the bronchial structure of a human lung as well as the forked shapes of slave yokes (forked wooden sticks used to tie captives together in a line). Both these works nod to fractal geometry and binary counting systems, both of which originated in Africa.
“Livity” is a Rastafari word that can either mean way of life or the life force present in every living thing. Campbell evokes both definitions in the title of his exhibition, which connects artworks that convey a sense of journey, worldly interconnectedness, and communal struggle against the injustices of times past and present, geographies far and near.
Charles Campbell is a Jamaican-born multidisciplinary artist, writer, and curator. His artworks, which include sculptures, sonic installations, and performances, have been exhibited widely in Canada and internationally. Recent group exhibitions include How Not to Be Seen, Remai Modern; Fragments of Epic Memory, Art Gallery of Ontario; and The Other Side of Now, Pérez Art Museum Miami. Campbell is the recipient of the 2022 VIVA Award and the 2020 City of Victoria Creative Builder Award. He holds an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmith College and a BFA from Concordia University. He currently lives and works on lək̓ʷəŋən territory, Victoria BC.

Charles Campbell: An Ocean to Livity was first exhibited at Surrey Art Gallery, April 15 to June 4, 2023, curated by Jordan Strom. The second iteration of the exhibition was at Nanaimo Art Gallery, October 14, 2023 to January 14, 2024, curated by Jesse Birch. The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery presentation of An Ocean to Livity is curated by Felicia Mings.
This exhibition will be accompanied by an opening celebration on Friday, January 31, 2025, from 6 to 9 pm. Parallel programs inspired by this exhibition include the artist in conversation, exhibition tours, and a night of poetry and music featuring David Deliscia, Joshua “Scribe” Watkis, and DJ Grumps.
The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery presentation of An Ocean to Livity is made possible with support from Canada Council for the Arts Explore and Create Project Grant, the Afrosonic Innovation Lab, York University’s Making and Media Creation Lab, local poets David Delisca and Joshua “Scribe” Watkis, and emerging sound artist Chibuzor Igwilo.
Exhibit Installation team: Uroš Jelić (lead), Phu Bui, Corinne Carlson, Jonah Kamphorst, Matthew Koudys, Jordan May, Manny Trinh, and Morgan Ziegler.
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