Many thanks to Peter Jordens for sharing this news about collaborating, concurrent ceramic art exhibitions “After the Island: Caribbean Canadian Ceramics” and “After the Island: Ornament and Ceramic Practice in the Jamaican Diaspora” at the Gardiner Museum (located at 111 Queen’s Park, Toronto, Ontario), which opened on October 9, 2026, and will remain on view through April 25, 2027, and at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD, located at 685 Mission Street, San Francisco, California) until May 30, 2027.
As Peter points out, the artists are PJ Anderson (Canadian of Jamaican heritage), Jacqueline Bishop (Jamaican), Eddy Firmin (Guadeloupean), Manuel Mathieu (Haitian), and Sharon Norwood (Jamaican). See more information and links to the artists’ pages below.
Description: Clay receives the gestures of the human body. Hands press, scrape, squeeze, and pour it. Forms are fixed by heat, becoming permanent yet breakable.
After the Island: Caribbean Canadian Ceramics brings together four Canadian artists with roots in the Caribbean—PJ Anderson, Eddy Firmin, Manuel Mathieu, and Sharon Norwood—who use clay to explore what our bodies inherit, protect, and carry forward. Spanning anglophone and francophone perspectives and different journeys of migration, their work challenges the idea of the island as isolated and self-contained, tracing connections across the region’s histories and geographies.
Step inside a scented shelter where fragrance triggers memory. Take the controls of an interactive video game and navigate a life-sized digital rendering of the artist’s body. Discover historic bricks made by enslaved Africans whose finger and hand markings are still visible on their surfaces. Across sculpture, painting, and immersive installation, the exhibition reveals how expansively contemporary artists are thinking through clay.
After the Island is a collaboration between the Gardiner Museum, Black Artists’ Networks in Dialogue (BAND), and the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), resulting in two exhibitions presented concurrently at the Gardiner in Toronto and MoAD in San Francisco. Modelling a novel curatorial partnership, this work explores new modes of thinking and co-creation.
For more information, see https://www.gardinermuseum.on.ca/event/after-the-island-caribbean-canadian-ceramics
Artists:
PJ Anderson (Canadian of Jamaican heritage), https://www.instagram.com/pjandersonceramics
Eddy Firmin (Guadeloupean), https://www.instagram.com/eddy.firmin
Manuel Mathieu (Haitian), https://www.instagram.com/manuelmathieu
Sharon Norwood (Jamaican), https://www.instagram.com/sharonnorwoodartist
“After the Island: Ornament and Ceramic Practice in the Jamaican Diaspora”
September 30, 2026 – May 30, 2027
Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission Street, San Francisco, California
https://www.moadsf.org/exhibitions/after-the-island-ornament-and-ceramic-practice-in-the-jamaican-diaspora
Artists:
PJ Anderson
Jacqueline Bishop (Jamaican), https://as.nyu.edu/faculty/jacqueline-bishop.html
Sharon Norwood