On February 1st, for Black History Month, the KUUMBA Festival will launch for it’s 29th year. This longstanding festival presented by TD Bank Group through the TD Ready Commitment, is Toronto’s largest and longest-running Black Futures Month festival, embracing the rich tapestry of culture, diversity and creativity through a month-long celebration of Black cultural programming.
Arinola Olowoporoku who has been working on KUUMBA this year shares with us how special KUUMBA is. “It has always been about the focused integration of multidisciplinary public programming by Black creatives or based on subject matter emanating from the Black community or the Black diaspora as well as different social, cultural, and political topics, that are important to, to us”.
With such a longstanding history, Olowoporoku notes that the evolution of KUUMBA is always part of the discussion. “Over the years, since doing KUUMBA, the conversation has been progressing. In 2019, for KUUMBA 25, the idea of KUUMBA 365 came up and it’s basically Harborfront Center’s response to the critique of why Black History Month or Black Futures Month is only in February. This gives room for Black voices to be celebrated and to be engaged with, exhibited, critiqued, spoken about, and in the conversation all year round”.
This year is the pilot of KUUMBA 365. They have chosen a theme and artists will have a call and response conversation with eachother and the artist’s work which will be shared virtually all year long. The theme is voice and artists Randell Adjei, Dwayne Morgan and Paulina O’Kieffe-Anthony will react to visual arts pieces that were on exhibit last year. Their reactions will be in spoken word.
Olowoporoku hopes that all people visiting KUUMBA at Harbourfront Centre will be able to discover something new through their participation. “One of the biggest things that I hope people take away is discovery – discovering an artist, discovering an idea, discovering a theory, and most importantly discovering something about ourselves, how we can connect”. Olowoporoku also wants to remind readers that though KUUMBA festival is by Black people and celebrating Black History Month it is for the entire community to come and celebrate.
“I would even argue the opposite and say that it’s definitely a room and space to welcome and give avenue for everyone, all allies, to sit in and understand, attempt to understand or just engage with points of view, perspective, position, and the ways that [the Black community] chooses to express those”.
Olowoporoku shares that as she has recently returned to Toronto after years of living away, it has been rewarding building programming that highlights the cultural landscape of Toronto. “The programming and how it is curated speaks to what I think might be missing, what I think should be championed more, an area I think we should pay attention to”. She adds that her work speaks to the purpose of KUUMBA and why we call February Black Futures Month. “It is very forward thinking, very progressive, very inclusive, wholesome, and celebratory in nature, and of course absolutely not neglecting historical narratives, not neglecting its historical facts and occurrences that brought us to where we are now. This programming consistently reveals themselves to me, whether it is what I thought a visual artist was trying to say versus what, in turn, they were actually trying to say. It speaks to the limitless nature of Black art, Black voices and how far we are from saturation, and how little we know”.
KUUMBA opens February 1st at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto.
Hillary LeBlanc
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