Rashid Johnson, Capsule (detail), 2020–21, powder-coated steel, plants, ceramics, rugs, fibreglass, shea butter, books, video, monitors and grow lights
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Purchased 2021. © Rashid Johnson. Photo: NGC
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Exploring Black music, cultural access and DIY club culture, Platforms is strongly connected to Kwende Kefentse’s own personal story.
Guided by Kwende Kefentse from a laboratory on and around the second level in the heart of Capsule, Platforms is a unique way for visitors to engage with Rashid Johnson’s work, and with creators from Ottawa and beyond.
Missed an event? View all Platforms activations in this series of videos.
A panel discussion exploring recommendations for business, presenters, government and funding bodies to help close employment gaps in Ottawa’s music industry by addressing issues of representation and inclusivity.
Josée Drouin-Brisebois, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Canada, speaks with Kwende Kefentse, Executive Director of CKCU-FM, about Platforms, the program he has developed to activate Capsule, an artwork by Rashid Johnson, currently installed in the Gallery’s main entrance.
Bannock x Bashment: The Innovative Intersection of Indigenous and Caribbean Music in Canada. During this conversation, Kwende Kefentse speaks with musicians Bear Witness from the Halluci Nation and Alanna Stuart of Bonjay about the intersection of Caribbean and Indigenous music.
WHO IS KWENDE KEFENTSE?
Kwende Kefentse in front of Rashid Johnson’s sculpture Capsule (2020–21), currently on view in the Gallery’s main entrance
Kwende Kefentse is the inaugural Executive Director of CKCU, Ottawa’s original independent non-profit campus-community broadcaster. In his more-than-fifteen-year career working at the intersection of the arts, heritage, public policy, urban science, multimedia, music and the economy, he has carved out a unique niche within the Canadian cultural landscape, playing a leading role in renewing, developing and promoting local arts and the local music industry.
Kwende graduated from the Bartlett School of Architechture, and serves on multiple boards focusing on diversity, music, film and the visual arts. In addition, he is producer and performer DJ Memetic, host and Creative Director of TIMEKODE — one of Canada’s most established independent club nights — and a beacon of progressive pluralism. His TIMEKODE and solo productions and remixes have received international critical acclaim, and he has been tapped to open for luminaries such as Nas, and Barack Obama.
IN KWENDE’S WORDS: THE “WHY” BEHIND PLATFORMS
My inspiration for this project comes primarily from the work [Capsule] itself, and from my experiences. As an object, the work is complex. It is an installation that works like scaffolding, bringing together seemingly disparate objects, forcing us to consider them together and in relation to each other. The objects themselves are both imbued with meaning within a cultural context, and are engaging without any context at all. At the same time, in order for them to inhabit the scaffold, platforms are required. The scaffold itself is not enough.
This scaffolding strategy – and the focus on the Black experience in North America – connected strongly to my personal story, as well as my research and practice on the generative power of urban space, Black music culture, and underground independent club culture as platforms for generating radical and generative co-presence. In this work, the city is the scaffold. In it, we create platforms, spatially and transpatially, to make our voices heard and our presence felt . . . we want different people in the same place for different reasons, learning about the work and each other.
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