One of the new exhibits featured at Surrey Art Gallery documents a journey from “Kampala to Canada” five decades ago.
Curated by Burnaby-based artist/writer Taslim Samji, the art show commemorates the travels and experiences of several Ugandan Asian Canadians at a time when thousands of such refugees arrived in Canada penniless and uncertain of their future.
In 1972 they were were forced out of Uganda by military dictator Idi Amin, who gave 80,000 Asians (those whose ancestors were originally from India and Pakistan) 90 days to leave the country. Close to 6,000 of them came to Canada in the largest migration of non-European refugees to the country at the time.
“Canada expanded its refugee policy only a few years earlier, allowing this first mass migration of non-European, non-Christian refugees into Canada,” Samji explained. “This is an important part of Canadian history and paved the way for other non-European groups to arrive in Canada under the refugee policy.”
Samji’s exhibit debuted last October at the Roundhouse arts centre in Vancouver, and she’s since written a 108-page book about the subject, “Kampala to Canada: Untold Immigration Stories of Ugandan Asians.”
Highlighted are the stories of 12 Ugandan South Asian Canadians whose journeys crossed continents, starting in India, before arriving in Canada. As refugees here, they were among some of the best and brightest, Samji says, including entrepreneurs, hoteliers and professionals contributing economically, socially and culturally to Canada. “There is vulnerability, resiliency, humility, generosity and love in each story,” she writes.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Now on view at Surrey Art Gallery, until Jan. 28, “Kampala To Canada” features art that addresses themes related to immigration and topics such as loneliness, mental health, grief, assimilation and optimism through photography, painting, printmaking and more. Admission is free.
The BC Ugandan Asian Resettlement Committee supported the creation of the art exhibit by Samji, who was born in Tanzania and grew up in Vancouver. A bio notes that she arrived in Canada in the late 1970s as a result of the political and social conditions that impacted South Asian communities in post-colonial East Africa.
“It was important to the committee that we acknowledged the 50-year mark of Ugandan Asian resettlement in Canada as a commemoration and not a celebration,” Samji said. “Many Ugandan Asians experienced incredible loss, suffering and trauma due to the forced exodus. This is something they continue to live with today.”
Samji’s “Kampala to Canada” is among art exhibits celebrated during Surrey Art Gallery’s fall opening event Saturday, Sept. 23, alongside “all roses sleep (inviolate light),” an immersive smell- and sight-based installation by Alana Bartol and Bryce Krynski, and “Swapnaa Tamhane: No Surface is Neutral,” an exploration of the colonial and material histories of textile-making in India.
• RELATED: Surrey Art Gallery show explores Indian cotton processes.
The event will include a conversation between Tamhane, gallery curator Jordan Strom and associate curator of adult programs Sameena Siddiqui at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free.
Surrey-area residents have a rare chance to experience the work of Montreal-based Tamhane in her solo exhibition at the gallery, starting Sept. 23.
Tamhane’s works on display – large-scale textile installations referencing the importance of cotton in India’s colonial and post-colonial history – challenge the hierarchical colonial separation between art, craft and design in India.
Block-printed and embellished textiles and works on paper handmade from cotton cloth harness different moments in India’s history of industrial and handloom cotton production.
Tamhane brings these historic concepts together in contemporary artworks that offer a commentary on our understanding of ornamentation and decoration, treating textiles as though they are drawings, emphasizing mark-making and the hand of individuals in a decolonial statement (both critical of and mitigating colonial history).
She juxtaposes textile works made in collaboration with artists from the Kutch region in western India are juxtaposed with her own drawings on paper handmade from khadi (handspun cotton cloth) that has been deconstructed to its base fibres and reconstituted.
“Tamhane’s artwork pushes against a complicated colonial history of cotton, exposes colonial ideas around art and artmaking that linger with us today, and imagines a different way forward,” guest curator Deepali Dewan notes.
“It must be experienced to be felt and understood.”
Surrey Art Gallery is located at 13750 88 Ave. (Bear Creek Park), online at surrey.ca/artgallery. Call 604-501-5566 for details.
with files from Alex Browne
