Anna Binta Diallo at Towards

Artist: Anna Binta Diallo

Exhibition title: Voyageur/Almanacs

Venue: Towards, Toronto, Canada

Date: January 21 – March 5, 2022

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Towards, Toronto

Towards is pleased to announce Voyageur/Almanacs, Anna Binta Diallo’s second solo exhibition at the gallery. Developed over the past two years, the works within Voyageur/Almanacs expand on Diallo’s interest in folklore and extend it into our ecological surroundings.

Human beings have long used story-telling and folklore as a way to assign meaning and impose order on an otherwise chaotic world. For Diallo, interrogating these stories is an opportunity to question their fundamental nature – why they exist, how they’ve been constructed and told, and how they’ve ultimately shaped our world. In doing so, she raises questions regarding memory, identity, migration, personal and collective mythologies, as well as the relationship between language and history.

In Voyageur/Almanacs, Diallo expands this investigation into the ecological world, examining the ways in which humans have attempted to comprehend and exert control over the natural environment. Taking the form of large scale, immersive installation, the works within Voyageur/ Almanacs, combine human and geometric forms with various scientific and ecological elements. Drawing from a wide set of references – spanning geography, earth sciences, landscape, and weather patterns, these hybridized figures seem to exist somewhere outside of the natural constructs of space and time. They appear simultaneously both futuristic, yet are firmly rooted in history. Through this, the works in Voyageur/Almanacs offer a space of possibility – one in which to slow down and re-imagine how we might move towards a more symbiotic relationship with the natural world.

Anna Binta Diallo’s (b. 1983, Dakar Senegal, lives and works in Winnipeg, Manitoba) practice explores the ways in which memory and nostalgia can coalesce to create unexpected narratives surrounding identity. Her work examines themes of migration, displacement, personal mythologies, diaspora, as well as the relationship between language, history, and identity. Diallo holds an MFA from Transart Institute and a BFA from University of Manitoba. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including in exhibitions at such as institutions as MOCA Taipei; SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin; BOZAR – Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels; Museum London, London ON; and was recently the subject of a solo exhibition at School of Art Gallery – University of Manitoba

Anna Binta Diallo, Voyageur/Almanacs, 2022, exhibition view, Towards, Toronto

Anna Binta Diallo, Voyageur/Almanacs, 2022, exhibition view, Towards, Toronto

Anna Binta Diallo, Voyageur/Almanacs, 2022, exhibition view, Towards, Toronto

Anna Binta Diallo, Moon Woman, 84 x 44 in. (213 x 112 cm), Digital collage printed on hemp fabric

Anna Binta Diallo, Seed Girl, 58 x 44 in. (147 x 112 cm), Digital collage printed on hemp fabric

Anna Binta Diallo, Boy With Lamb (Shepherd), 58 x 44 in. (147 x 112 cm), Digital collage printed on hemp fabric

Anna Binta Diallo, Voyageur/Almanacs, 2022, exhibition view, Towards, Toronto

Anna Binta Diallo, Voyageur/Almanacs, 2022, exhibition view, Towards, Toronto

Anna Binta Diallo, Rancher, 84 x 44 in. (213 x 112 cm), Digital collage printed on hemp fabric

Anna Binta Diallo, Voyageur/Almanacs, 2022, exhibition view, Towards, Toronto

Anna Binta Diallo, Voyageur/Almanacs, 2022, exhibition view, Towards, Toronto

Anna Binta Diallo, Voyageur/Almanacs, 2022, exhibition view, Towards, Toronto

Anna Binta Diallo, Two Fishermen, 54 x 41 in. (137 x 104 cm) Digital collage printed on hemp

Anna Binta Diallo, Farmer, 58 x 44 in. (147 x 112 cm), Digital collage printed on hemp