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Essenceh

@essenceh

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🖼️ 𝗜 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗜 𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗙𝗹𝘆

Opening Saturday, September 26, at the Varley Art Gallery of Markham
Reception: 2 to 4 PM; free admission

Curated by Essence Harden (@essenceh)
Featuring works by Anique Jordan (@aniquejordan)

In 𝗜 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗜 𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗙𝗹𝘆, Anique Jordan considers how truth is made, inherited, and given form. The exhibition grows from Jordan’s research into the Flying Africans—stories of enslaved people who escaped bondage by taking flight—and connections between the Gullah Geechee communities of the Carolinas and her family history in Trinidad. Jordan asks what becomes possible when ancestral narratives, dreams, and spiritual knowledge are approached as truth-telling systems.

Through photography, performance, and installation, Jordan develops a visual language of glitches, shadows, blurs, portals, and disjointed bodies. Monumental photographs, rearrangeable light boxes, and images printed on glass blur the boundaries between reality and the seemingly impossible. Here, flight is at once movement, refusal, and a way of knowing. Jordan invites us into a world governed by other rules, where history may be dreamed and remembered, belief becomes material, and the marvelous offers its own account of what happened.

| Fall Exhibitions Opening Reception |

🗓️ Saturday, September 26, 2026
🕙 2 to 4 PM
💰 Free | Registration not required

Event highlights:
• A special talk by Anique Jordan
• 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀 by Farhia Tato (@farhiatato), a collaborative, improvisational poetry and sound work
• Caribbean cuisine
• Hands-on art-making for all ages
• Guest curator Essence Harden will be present

To learn more, visit VarleyArtGallery.ca taken in Varley Art Gallery by @essenceh

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23 days ago

first grade ✨ by @essenceh

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a month ago

✨✨✨ taken in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts by @essenceh

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5 months ago

Another birthday taken in Jamaica by @essenceh

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5 months ago

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OZ 🩷 by @essenceh

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7 months ago

Third Year/My Last Year Curating FOCUS for Frieze LA

See ya tomorrow ✨ taken in Frieze Art Fair by @essenceh

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7 months ago

Incredible month in JA for research with @adeeroberson @barringtondarius @nnekajax and @erinzulie

beyond grateful, forever in love, and ready to work taken in Jamaica by @essenceh

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9 months ago

Big up @expochicago and 2026 ✨ taken in EXPO CHICAGO by @essenceh

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a year ago

🚨 new exhibition 🚨

Driftwork at Southern Guild

Featuring: Zalika Azim, Sandra Brewster, Sydney Cain, Janiva Ellis, Shaniqwa Jarvis, Anique Jordan, Lebohang Kganye, Nandipha Mntambo, Wura-Natasha Ogunji, Sidony O’Neal and Jasmine Thomas
Girvan.

November 13 - January 10

Forever grateful to every artists and the SG team ✨

image credit: Wura Natasha Ogunji, Lagoons and Lagoons and Lagoons taken in Southern Guild Los Angeles by @essenceh

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a year ago

🎃 by @essenceh

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a year ago

🚨 new exhibition 🚨

two years, me and @paulinapobocha, and twenty eight rad artists

incredibly proud and grateful, come through taken in Hammer Museum by @essenceh

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a year ago

kindergarten oz 🩷 by @essenceh

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a year ago