Do you have a story to share about your Indo-Caribbean ancestry?
Join Gallery 1C03 on April 1, 2025 from 4 to 6 p.m. for a guided tour of Heidi McKenzie’s Reclaimed: Indo-Caribbean HerStories exhibition, followed by a community storytelling session.
Members of Winnipeg’s Indo-Caribbean community are invited to share a few words about their family history, and to bring an object connected to the story of their Indo-Caribbean heritage. Objects could be a photo of an ancestor or something else that offers a starting point for their story.
This storytelling builds on McKenzie’s Holding Ancestry artwork, where she photographed herself and other Indo-Caribbean women in her community holding a photo of their foremother, and invited them to share a story about their ancestry. In doing so, McKenzie “reveals how we all live inside these histories.”
“Heidi Mackenzie’s art captures the fragmentary nature of Indo-Caribbean women’s migratory histories,” said Dr. Kerry Sinanan, Assistant Professor of English, and who will share her own story at the event. “This storytelling event offers space for those of us in the diaspora to share what we do and do not know of our own histories, and to think together about how our stories can be remade and remembered.”
About the event
The event will begin at 4 p.m. in Gallery 1C03 where gallery Director/Curator Jennifer Gibson will give a tour of the exhibition. It will continue at 4:30 p.m. in Room 2M70 where UWinnipeg professors Dr. Emma Alexander (History) and Dr. Aarzoo Singh (Women’s and Gender Studies) will facilitate the main event. After watching a few HerStories videos, Indo-Caribbean audience members will be invited, if they wish, to take a few moments to share their story, followed by conversation and refreshments.
Those who wish to share their story are asked to register on the event page.
About the artist
Heidi McKenzie is a ceramic artist based in Toronto. Heidi completed her MFA at OCADU in 2014. Heidi is informed by her mixed-race Indo-Trinidadian/Irish-American heritage. She uses photography, digital media, and archive to forefront themes of ancestry, race, migration and colonization, as well as body and healing. In 2022, Heidi was a finalist for the Shantz Award, Canada’s national emerging ceramics award. Heidi has exhibited internationally in Europe, Scandinavia and the US. The recipient of numerous grants, Heidi has created in Denmark, Hungary, Australia, China, and Indonesia. She curated Decolonizing Clay at the Australian Ceramics Triennale, 2019, and participated in the World Indian Diaspora Congress in Trinidad, 2020, and the Celebrating Girmityas (Indo-indenturehship) International Conference, May 2023. Heidi was inducted into the International Academy of Ceramics in 2022 and serves as a volunteer board member with NCECA, the National Council for the Education of the Ceramic Arts. Reclaimed: Indo-Caribbean HerStories continues to explore the little-known histories of Indo-Caribbean indentureship through a feminist lens.
Exhibition hours
Monday to Friday between 12 and 4 p.m. until April 25, 2025. Closed Friday, April 18. Learn more about the exhibition.
We acknowledge support of the University of Winnipeg BIPOC Events Fund for making this event possible. Reclaimed: Indo-Caribbean HerStories and this event are presented as part of the Flash Photographic Festival.
