Nave, an award-winning immersive multimedia installation commissioned by the Toronto Biennial of Art, explores the entanglement of colonial Canada in the transatlantic trade of enslaved Africans through links between the nave of a church, the hold of the ship, the tomb, and the womb of the world.  A time traveller from the future Age of Awakening – performed by Camille Turner – visits a church in the Age of Silence, circa 2021, to perform a ritual to remember ancestors who endured the Middle Passage. An ancestor – performed by Emilie Jabouin (Zila) – emerges from the sea and on the shore, she performs a song and dance of resistance and victory reminding the African Diaspora of the strength and resilience of their ancestors who crossed the water in the bellies of ships. Nave situates the viewer within the context of memory embodied by the ocean. The soundtrack composed by Ravi Naimpally is dominated by the sound of the sea, the voice of the ancestor and drums fading, rising, and dispersing with the waves. Nave draws on strategies from Turner’s ongoing Afronautic research strategies. 

Nave was Written and Directed by Camille Turner who was awarded the 2022 Artist Prize for her outstanding contribution to the Toronto Biennial of Art.

Performed by Camille Turner and Emilie Jabouin (Zila)

Cinematography

Toronto - Esery Mondésir

Newfoundland - Cody Westman

Camera Assistant: Andrew Osei

Editor: Chris Wiseman

Composer: Ravi Naimpally

Song and Drumming: Emilie Jabouin (Zila)

Sound Recording: Kobena Aquaa-Harrison

Production Manager: Roxanne Fernandes

Make-up: Kristen Gallacher

Hair: Clarisse Mbadouet McGowan of Clarisse Hair Salon