Vintage Black Canada: A Doon Village Introspection - Guided Tours

The Event:

This exhibition at Martin House, in the heart of Doon Heritage Village, invites visitors to reflect on the ways that different histories can exist side by side. Within this setting, A Doon Village Introspection introduces photographs from the Vintage Black Canada™ archive, curated by Aaron T. Francis, and Caribbean household artifacts to offer not only a window into Black life but also a reminder of its resonances with other stories of migration and community. The exhibition underscores how different communities have built belonging in Waterloo Region through work, ritual, creativity, and care.

Ultimately, this project asks visitors to consider how different communities - whether Mennonite families in the 19th century or Caribbean immigrants in the 20th - have navigated migration, adaptation, and the building of community in Waterloo Region. By placing these stories together, we highlight shared labours and aspirations, and the ways people make space for belonging. In this way, Martin House becomes a meeting place of histories - one that encourages us to see local life through multiple lenses.

The Curator:

Aaron T. Francis is a doctoral student at the Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo researching the role of art and culture on Jamaican foreign policy. Aaron is also a community archivist, curator and the founder of Vintage Black Canada.

The Archive:

Founded in 2019, Vintage Black Canada is a multidisciplinary creative archive that documents the transnational modern history of the African Diaspora in Canada. Art, video and photographs from this initiative have been exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario (2021, 2023), University of Waterloo Art Gallery (2023), Maclean's magazine (2023) and in several award winning documentaries including CBC’s Black Life: Untold Stories (2023) and CityTV’s Black Community Mixtapes (2023).

Tickets:

Free, but registration is required.

Guided tours, led by curator Aaron T. Francis, will take place every third Saturday through December, from 2-3pm.

Self-guided tours will be available all other Sundays beginning September 28th through December 28th, from 1-3pm. No Registration is required for self-guided tours.

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Host or Publisher Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum