Artspeak is an exhibition and programming space encouraging dialogue between contemporary visual art and writing. Artspeak is committed to intersectional participation and exchange.
233 Carrall St
Vancouver BC V6B2J2
Wed- Saturday
12PM to 6PM
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On View
A Rose Into An Omen
November 7- March 15 2026
i. Alchemizing labour, play.
Artists Tiona Nekkia McClodden and Karice Mitchell’s iconographical interpretations of erotic archives experiment with dominant inscriptions of Black women in visual culture and public discourse, proposing new positioning through ritual, process, storytelling, and material theorization. A Rose Into an Omen conceptualizes the anthropogenic properties of (re)configuration and withholding as mechanisms for navigating the complex terrain of post-colonial identities, architectures of power, and the enduring historical ‘translation’ and restitution of an archive. The critical duet redresses an economy of flesh and trade, commodified and fetishized imagery, reconstituted as concealed, discreet, and encoded preservations of Black womanhood. Deployed not as liberatory enactments, but as strategy, a site for critique and embrace. An investigative destabilization of legibility and cultural dissemblance, aesthetically severing the tenuous grounds of visual subculture: race, gender, sex, and politics. In this, McClodden’s NEVER LET ME GO | XXX., 2025, Very, Very Slightly – [VVS.III], 2023, Very, Very Slightly – [VVS.V], 2023, NEVER LET ME GO | XX. holder, 2025, BDSM source material, dyed leather, polished, dusted, and framed works, and Karice Mitchell’s Untitled (reclining nude, leather and chrome), 2025 redacted ephemera, vinyl, etched, and assemblage works obfuscate the Black femme and abstract figure in explicit (venerative) implication. How does material inhabit or possess archetypes of eroticism beyond representational politics? How might the synthesis of Black, Queer formal and complex aesthetic technologies create a metamorphosis of interpretation?
Recent Publications
Circuit Playground
Available for purchase at 233 Carrall St.
Circuit Playground is an interactive sound installation created by Zoma Tochi Maduekwe in collaboration with 1616, a project of Timothy Yanick Hunter and Aaron Jones with a focus on interdisciplinary practice, peer-to-peer collaboration, and material dissemination. The publication, which references logical and algorithmic methods found in electronics design, music theory, and memory, encourages participatory engagement through interaction points that present themselves as familiar playground games. By using logarithmic patterns and frameworks found in childhood games, Maduekwe encourages interactivity that appeals to the most fundamental of our haptic instincts. The resulting composition is adaptive and ever-changing, taking the form of a dialogue between body and machine.
Designed by Jones and Hunter of 1616, Circuit Playground publication contains a selection of visual research and is curated through Artspeak’s curatorial residency program with CIR Troy Johnson, and graciously funded by City of Vancouver.
Upcoming Programs
Co-presented by Artspeak Gallery and Critical Image Forum, UBC: Artists Tiona Nekkia McClodden and Karice Mitchell examine the dynamic interplay between visuality and the figure, considering representation and legibility of bodies within contemporary art discourse. In conversation with author and scholar Jasbir K. Puar, Professor Emerita at Rutgers University, faculty in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Social Justice Institute at the University of British Columbia. The presentation invites critical reflection on their artistic practices and the material and theoretical frameworks that inform the ways they construct, contest, and reframe the politics of visibility.
Material + Visuality coincides with the Artspeak Gallery exhibition “A Rose Into An Omen” on view November 7 2025 to March 14 2026 at 233 Carrall St, Vancouver.
Artist Lecture
November 15 2025 2pm @ Polygon Gallery
Material + Visuality
Off-site
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Circuit Playground publication responds to the exhibition on view at 233 Carrall St with found image digital collage designed and written by 1616 Collective featuring a curatorial essay by Troy Johnson.
1616 is an emergent studio and exhibition space and collaborative endeavor of Aaron Jones and Timothy Yanick Hunter. In this collaborative project, Hunter and Jones merge their distinct artistic voices, creating a platform that is interested in multidisciplinary art making, the unorthodox, and peer-to-peer sharing and collaboration. This fusion embodies the essence of their artistic interests, where they aim to support experimental ambitions, new conceptual and material approaches, and the futurity of cultural dissemination.
Off-site is located at 320 Carrall St Vancouver and made possible by the generosity of the Cheeky Proletariat. If you are interested in exhibiting in the offsite please email info@artspeak.ca. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis.