Camille Turner facts for kids

Camille Turner was born on March 11, 1960. She is a Canadian artist who works with media and performance art. She is also a curator (someone who organizes art shows) and an educator. Her art has been shown in Canada and around the world. It often explores what it means to be a Black Canadian.

Early Life and Home

Camille Turner was born in Kingston, Jamaica. When she was nine, she moved to Canada. First, she lived in Sarnia, then in Hamilton, Ontario. Growing up in Canada, she sometimes felt like she didn't quite belong. Other kids sometimes made her feel different because of her race.

Turner has shared that she often wondered, "When will I ever be Canadian?" This feeling of being an "other" was very common for her. Canada was also where she, her mother, and her sister reunited with her father. He worked in the steel industry in Hamilton. Turner explains that her father was often away. So, "home" felt like a special place that would happen when her family was finally together. This is why much of her art explores themes of belonging and finding a home.

Education and Learning

Camille Turner studied at several universities and colleges. She is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art. She also attended McMaster University and Sheridan College. Later, she earned a Master's degree and a doctorate from York University.

Artistic Work and Projects

Camille Turner's art looks at identity and cultural exchange. She uses different methods like installations, performances, and media projects. Her recent work often explores hidden or forgotten histories of places.

Miss Canadiana

Turner is well-known for her character, Miss Canadiana. This character is like a beauty queen on a "Red, White, and Beautiful Tour." Since 2002, Miss Canadiana has pointed out problems with Canada's idea of being a multicultural country.

Exploring Black Futures

Turner often uses new media art and mobile technology in her interactive projects. Many of her works imagine black futures through Afrofuturistic stories. She created a series of performances about space travelers called the Afronauts. These include The Final Frontier (2010), TimeWarp (2013), and The Afronautic Research Lab (2016).

The Afronauts are descendants of the Dogon people from West Africa. In Turner's stories, they return to Earth after 10,000 years to help save the planet. Turner uses ideas from science fiction to explore Canadian history. She reminds Canadians that while their country helped people escape slavery through the Underground Railroad, Canada also had its own history of slavery.

In The Afronautic Research Lab, visitors could look at old newspaper ads. These ads were posted by Canadian slave owners in the 1700s. Through these performances, Turner connects to the Dogon people's ancient knowledge of astronomy. She says her work is about "cavorting with the ghosts" because past events still affect the present. Science fiction is a great way to connect with these "ghosts."

Other Art Projects

Turner was an Artist-in-Residence at the Art Gallery of Mississauga from 2012 to 2014. In 2013-14, she worked with the Broken City Lab in Windsor, Ontario. In 2015, her project "Big Up Barton" focused on a neighborhood in Hamilton. She set up a space where people could listen to stories from local residents. Visitors could also share their own memories.

Turner also created a project called Wanted with Camal Pirbhai. This project showed modern photo portraits next to old notices about runaway enslaved people from 18th-century Canada. In 2017, parts of this work were displayed as billboards in Toronto.

In 2022, Camille Turner's video installation called Nave won the $10,000 Artist Prize at the Toronto Biennial of Art. This artwork focused on Canada's past involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.