Heidi McKenzie: Reclaimed: Indo-Caribbean HerStories

February 27 - April 25, 2025

AFFILIATED EVENTS
Opening reception: Thursday, February 27, 4:00 - 6:00 pm
Artist Talk on Zoom: Tuesday, March 11 at 4:00 pm

Reclaimed: Indo-Caribbean HerStories is a mixed-media ceramic-based exhibition that illuminates the power, courage and strength of Indo-Caribbean women, past and present. Through a feminist lens, the exhibition narrates the little-known histories of Indo-indentureship in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. Using photographic portraiture on ceramics, both archival and contemporary, the work draws in the visual narrative of the women’s indo-indentured jewelry as symbolic of strength, courage and resistance. It is an act of reclamation and decolonization.

There are three main components to the exhibition: a wall-mounted set of contemporary portraits on porcelain, lit from behind, depicting contemporary Indo-Caribbean women holding a matrilineal ancestral photograph; a two-sided collage of “Coolie Belles” photographs and ephemera on porcelain in window frames, inspired by early 20th century postcards; and a series of abstract figurative sculptures that respond to the photographic work.

ABOUT HEIDI MCKENZIE
Heidi McKenzie is a ceramic and installation artist based in Toronto. Heidi completed her Master of Fine Arts degree at the Ontario College of Art and Design University in 2014. She is informed by her mixed-race Indo-Trinidadian/Irish-American heritage. Heidi uses ceramics, photography, digital media, and archive to forefront themes of ancestry, race, migration and colonization, as well as body and healing. Heidi has exhibited internationally in Europe, Scandinavia, Asia, Oceania and North America. The recipient of numerous grants, Heidi has created work in Ireland, Denmark, Hungary, Australia, China and Indonesia. Her art has been collected by the Royal Ontario Museum, Global Affairs Canada, and the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, among others. Heidi curated Decolonizing Clay at the Australian Ceramics Triennale in 2019 and participated in the World Indian Diaspora Congress in Trinidad in 2020. She was inducted into the International Academy of Ceramics in 2022. She serves as a volunteer board member with NCECA, the National Council for the Education of the Ceramic Arts. Heidi’s installation, Division, which highlights the division of class between plantation owner and worker in the Caribbean, was invited to tour in the US alongside works by Ai Wei Wei, Theaster Gates, Simone Leigh, and Magdolene Odundo in the exhibition Underneath Everything. Heidi’s solo exhibition Reclaimed: Indo-Caribbean HerStories – exploring the little-known migrant and labour histories of Indo-Caribbean indentureship through a feminist lens -- was first shown at the Gardiner Museum in 2023 and is remounted in Winnipeg at Gallery 1C03 in 2025. She presented Girmitya HerStories at the 2024 Indian Ceramics Triennale in Delhi – bringing the Indo-Caribbean diaspora “home.”

RESOURCES COMING SOON
Exhibition brochure featuring an essay by Shaneela Boodoo.

Library guide to further expand your understanding of this exhibition.

EXHIBITION HOURS
Monday - Friday between 12:00 and 4:00 pm from February 27 until April 25, 2025. Closed Friday, April 18.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Gallery 1C03 is located on Treaty One Territory, heartland of the Red River Métis, and ancestral lands of the Anishinaabe, Ininew, Anishininew, Dakota Oyate, and Denesuline. We acknowledge that our water is sourced from Shoal Lake 40 First Nation.

We wish to express our appreciation to the University of Winnnipeg Department of History and Department of Women’s and Gender Studies and Margaret Laurence Endowment Fund Community Grants for their support of this exhibition project.

GETTING HERE AND ACCESSIBILITY
Maps of The University of Winnipeg campus, including accessibility and parking maps, can be found at https://www.uwinnipeg.ca/maps/. The Gallery is located on the main floor of Centennial Hall at 515 Portage Avenue. Accessible, street level visitor entrances with auto door openers and ramps are via Portage Avenue, Ellice Avenue and Spence Street. The gallery doors are equipped with auto-openers. There is a gender-inclusive, accessible washroom less than 100 feet from the Gallery entrance. Our exhibitions and affiliated events are free to everyone.