Canada Recast: Alternative Futures with Drew Hayden Taylor and Camille Turner

Special Exhibition Program

Online ticket sales are now closed. Tickets can be purchased at the door. $15 General; $10 Gardiner Friends

What is our country made of? As Canada marks the 150th anniversary of Confederation, Globe and Mail columnist Doug Saunders hosts a series of onstage conversations with pairings of uniquely situated guests who will look at the country from inside and outside, from past and future, with raised eyebrows and raised fists.

March 15: Satirical Lenses
March 27: First and Next Canadians
May 3: Alternative Futures

The most important parts of Canada’s history remain in the future. For a look beyond 150, we turn to two Canadian science-fiction visionaries. Drew Hayden Taylor is the author of Take Us To Your Chief, a new collection of First Nations science-fiction stories; he is also a pioneer in the “Native Vampire” and “Native Gothic” genres. Camille Turner is a Jamaican-born, Toronto-based media/performance artist and educator. Combining Afrofuturism with historical research, her interventions, installations and public engagements bring hidden and erased histories to life through place-based explorations.

Canada Recast is presented alongside the special exhibition Janet Macpherson: A Canadian Bestiary, a highly inventive and visually stunning take on Canadian history and identity from the perspective of one of the country’s most exciting young artists. Together, the exhibition and talk series highlight the diversity of viewpoints and experiences that make up Canada.

About Drew Hayden Taylor

Drew Hayden Taylor is an award winning playwright, novelist, journalist, and filmmaker. Over the years, he has done practically everything from performing stand-up comedy at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. to being Artistic Director of Canada’s premiere Native theatre company, Native Earth Performing Arts Inc.  Born and living on the Curve Lake First Nation in Ontario, he is celebrating the launch of his thirtieth publication, a play titled Crees in the Caribbean.

About Camille Turner

Camille Turner is an explorer of race, space, home and belonging. Born in Jamaica and currently based in Toronto, her work combines Afrofuturism and historical research. Her interventions, installations, and public engagements have been presented throughout Canada and internationally. Camille graduated from Ontario College of Art and Design and York University’s Masters in Environmental Studies program where she is currently a PhD candidate.

About Doug Saunders

Doug Saunders is the Globe and Mail’s international-affairs columnist and an author whose work focuses on cities, migration, population, and policy. A native of Hamilton, Ontario, he has reported from more than 40 countries after serving for 15 years as the Globe’s London-based European Bureau Chief and as its Los Angeles Bureau Chief. He has won the National Newspaper Award, Canada’s counterpart to the Pulitzer Prize, on five occasions.

He is the author of Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World (2010), which visits 20 cities on five continents to examine this century’s historic shift of populations from rural to urban areas, and the factors that turn immigration into a success; and The Myth of the Muslim Tide (2012), which explores the effects of, and responses to, the arrival of religious-minority immigrants. Later in 2017 he will publish Maximum Canada, a book examining Canada’s crisis of underpopulation, its history, and its solutions.

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