Sharl G. Smith
Residency period: February 1 – May 15, 2024
Sharl G. Smith, Value Shift, Stainless steel spheres, 2023. Photo by: Jordyn Stewart.
Sharl G. Smith is a Waterloo-based sculptor and former architectural professional, working primarily with bead-stitching as a means of exploring her identity, global themes of equity, and care-based value systems. Bead-stitching is the act of creating objects by stitching beads together, one or two at a time. Smith sees parallels in the process of beadwork—the combining of discrete units into a whole, using a tension-based network—with diverse biological and sociological systems.
Project description
For their residency, Sharl G. Smith will make beads in developing a performance in collaboration with a choreographer and dancers. Centring traditions stigmatized by Christian colonialism, Smith investigates the spiritual aspects of the Yoruba religion in West Africa and its connection to Jamaican religions like Myal, Obeah, and Revivalism. These marginalized traditions form the lifeblood of Jamaica’s African heritage and heavily influence modern music and dance across the African diaspora. Smith uses this research, along with their review of the AGO’s collection with the curatorial team, to create a dance performance that highlights beadwork as a carrier of history and knowledge through the lens of decolonization. Smith will work with dancers to represent and hold large beads in a live-action bead-weaving ceremony slated for late spring, 2024.
