Camille Turner, Fly, 2024. Single channel video (4:13). Filmed and edited by Jake Levinsky. Commissioned by the Art Museum at the University of Toronto. Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid for Otherworld at Art Museum.

Fly (2024)

The installation Fly depicts people dressed in white gathering by a body of water.  Together, they look up and their bodies rise into the air and soar into the sky. This artwork, focusing on the power of imagination to conjure return, was inspired by the history of a 44-ton schooner named the Fly that was built for the transatlantic trade in Newfoundland in 1781. In the slavevoyages database the Fly was recorded as travelling from London to Badgari, West Africa in 1792 for the purpose of slaving. It was intercepted by Africans on the coast who liberated 113 captives who were imprisoned in the ship. This artwork also draws on the mythical story known as Ibo Landing, in which captive Africans walked out to open water en masse, chained together instead of walking toward a waiting slave ship. Some say they returned home to Africa by walking on the bottom of the ocean. Others say they flew.

Created by Camille Turner

Videographer and Editor Jake Levinsky

Composer Ravi Naimpally

Production Manager Roxanne Fernandes

Performers Abi Cudjoe, Dedra McDermott, Nickeshia Garrick, Rodney Diverlus

Filmed at The City of Pickering, Pie in the Sky Studios