Art installation celebrates Black womanhoood

un/settled is a literary art exhibition that covers 240 square feet of Belzberg Library's streetfront windows at SFU Vancouver.

This installation of exceptional scale speaks to both the life-halting pandemic and the seemingly endless violence visited upon racialized bodies. Draped over the windows of a library closed due to COVID-19, this collaboration between poet Otoniya J. Okot Bitek and artist Chantal Gibson centres Black womanhood while reminding us that amidst global uncertainty there are stories to be told and communities to be celebrated.

This is a street-facing window exhibit.

Articles and news about un/settled

"Love, Always Love": Conversations about un/settled with Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, Chantal Gibson, and Ebony Magnus, by Mizuki Giffin and Kitty Cheung.
Published in The Lyre (vol 12) on Nov 1, 2021.

SFU celebrates Black womanhood through art, by Linda Kanyamuna.
Published in The Peak (vol 167, issue 10) on March 15, 2021. (Also available in Issuu.)

PUB 331 interprets un/settled

For the course PUB331: Print and Digital Books, Publishing@SFU students were tasked with conceptualizing and designing a print book based on, or in conversation with, the un/settled art installation, which has graced the windows of the SFU Belzberg Library for the last year. Using student-authored texts from The Peak and The Lyre some books are print interpretations of the exhibition (such as catalogues and art books), while other projects focus on the students' own experiences of the installation (such as zines, poetry books and guidebooks). Over the course of the book production process, students were encouraged to consider the materiality of their books (paper, binding, diecuts, etc.) as well as the books' audiences, many of whom might not have seen the installation in-person.