Royal Ontario Museum presents Carnival: From Emancipation to Celebration, an exhibition on view from July 28, 2012 to February 24, 2013, featuring the work of internationally renowned masquerade designer Brian Mac Farlane along with Scotiabank Toronto Caribbean Carnival photographs. As an opportunity for visitors to also commemorate this year’s celebration of Jamaican and Trinidad and Tobago Independence, and Emancipation Day, Carnival is displayed in both the Hilary and Galen Weston Wing on Level 2 of the ROM and in the Hyacinth Gloria Chen Crystal Court. Carnival is presented in partnership with the Scotiabank Toronto Caribbean Carnival. The exhibition’s February 2013 closing coincides with Black History Month.
Brian Mac Farlane – Farewell From Humanity – The Circle of Life Port of Spain, Trinidad, 2011 © 2011 Brian Mac Farlane
Carnival offers a journey through Mac Farlane’s stunning carnival creations from the last three years: Resurrection: The Mas (2010); Humanity: The Circle of Life (2011); and Sanctification…In search of (2012). The exhibition also acknowledges the rich symbolic and historical significance of the 50th anniversaries of colonial independence being observed in Jamaica and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, respectively. Carnival also commemorates Emancipation Day in Ontario. Historically associated with the pre–Lenten period in the Christian calendar, many Caribbean-based carnivals, including Toronto’s, takes place around Emancipation Day; the first of August. In Ontario, this holiday weekend commemorates Simcoe Day, named for John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada. In 1793, Lord Simcoe passed the Act Against Slavery that led to the abolition of slavery in Upper Canada, well before the British’s Act in 1834.
Carnival consists of four costumes and 21 hand painted renderings from the famed Mac Farlane design studios or “mas camp”. These are augmented by footage taken from inside Mac Farlane’s Mas camp. These Trinidad and Tobago carnival treasures provide a counterpoint to the photo and video material from Scotiabank Toronto Caribbean Carnival and the live commentary of historians and participants of this important North American festival. – www.rom.on.ca