Living Portraits is an exhibition on display at Edmonton City Hall from January 31 to June 16, 2026, celebrating Black artists in Edmonton through a journey of visibility, curiosity, and connection. Curated by Darren Jordan, a painter, curator, and long-time champion of Black creative life in the city, the public art display was developed within the framework of the City of Edmonton Anti-Black Racism Action Plan in collaboration with the Edmonton Arts Council. For those who follow African literary and artistic communities globally, the exhibition carries a particular resonance: among its twenty featured artists is Titilope Sonuga, the Nigerian-Canadian poet, playwright, and performer whose voice has long moved between Lagos and Edmonton.

The exhibition unfolds across five curved panels in three distinct stages. Look presents the artists with dignity and stillness, asking viewers to reflect on how Black presence is seen in public space. Approach reveals more personal images that highlight individuality, joy, and creative practice. Engage invites conversation through augmented reality, where artists speak in their own voices about their lives, neighbourhoods, and culture in Edmonton. The result is an experience where the gallery becomes a space of encounter, not just observation.

Pictures taken from Titilope Sonuga’s Instagram Page

The full list of participating artists includes Garfield Morgan, Richard Lipscombe, Lisa Mayes, Arlo Maverick, Titilope Sonuga, Cherelle George, Cameron Browne, Althea Cunningham, Fetsum Tecelmariam, Malcolm Azania, Alison Clarke, Thomas Alexander, Tololwa Mollel, Gabriel Angelo, Kyle Smith, Sterling Scott, Mpoe Mogale, Shaihiem Small, Christopher Peacock, and Baylon Kaiki. Among them, several artists carry African roots — including Tololwa Mollel, the beloved Tanzanian-Canadian children’s book author long based in Edmonton, and Fetsum Tecelmariam, an Eritrean-Canadian artist whose work is threaded through the city’s creative fabric. Their presence in the exhibition is a reminder that Edmonton’s Black artistic community is as diasporic and layered as any on the continent.

Titilope Sonuga is a writer and performer who calls both Lagos, Nigeria, and Edmonton, Canada, home. She has received the Canadian Authors’ Association Emerging Writer Award, served as an Open Society Foundation Resident Poet on Gorée Island in Senegal, and is the author of three collections of poetry — Down to Earth, Abscess, and This Is How We Disappear — as well as two spoken word albums. On her social media pages, Sonuga shared her feelings about being included: “I’m honoured to have been included in the Living Portraits exhibition at City Hall alongside these brilliant artists and makers. Thank you, Darren Jordan for your vision.” She added that bringing her children to see it in person on Mother’s Day was “the crowning jewel on a lovely Mother’s Day.”

Rather than emphasizing origins outside the city, the exhibition grounds identity in Edmonton neighbourhoods and shared spaces, building familiarity instead of distance, an invitation to realize that these are not distant figures but people shaping the same city you move through every day. For readers of African literature and followers of the African creative diaspora, Living Portraits is a powerful reminder of how far our artists travel, and how deeply they root themselves wherever they land. The exhibition runs through June 16 at Edmonton City Hall. Full details are available at edmontonarts.ca.