Xposé NOIR — A Bold Declaration Through Lens and Legacy

Xposé NOIR, a powerful installation within the 2025 edition of CAPIC’s Xposé exhibition, marked an important evolution in how we center and celebrate Black photographic expression in Canada. Curated by Felicia “FêB3A RBG” Byron, the exhibition—titled ELEMENTS of Freedom: Our Choice of Weapon—draws its name and spirit from the revolutionary words of Gordon Parks and Kendrick Lamar, both of whom used their art as a tool for resistance, storytelling, and transformation.

Inspired by a legacy of Black creatives who transformed pain into purpose, Xposé NOIR brings together the work of seven Black Toronto-based photo artists. Spanning generations, practices, and perspectives, these artists represent not only the diversity of Black lived experience but also the richness of intersectional identities—including Deaf and disabled communities and LGBTQ2S+ voices.

More than an art show, Xposé NOIR is a declaration: a space where light and shadow collide to reimagine freedom as healing, joy, and creative resistance. The installation builds on CAPIC’s Black Histories | Black Futures tribute to Gordon Parks, offering a contemporary platform for image-makers whose work breathes, burns, resists, and redefines.

With powerful imagery likened to elemental forces—fire, water, air, earth, and spirit—the featured works ask us to consider:
What does freedom feel like? What does it look like in the archive, in the frame, in the body?

This groundbreaking initiative is more than an exhibition. It is a call to reflect, remember, and reimagine.
This is their choice of weapon.

Featured Artists:

• Djenabé

• Wayne Salmon

• Hannah Somers

• Kalmplex

• Peter Owusu-Ansah

• Tsemaye Tite

• FêB3A RBG