___a lineage of transgression___
February 11 - April 11, 2026
jamilah malika abu-bakare
Kameelah Janan Rasheed
Shala Miller
Chiedza Pasipanodya
M.NourbeSe Philip
Gallery TPW is thrilled to present ___a lineage of transgression___, the third edition and inaugural presentation in Toronto, featuring the works of jamilah malika abu-bakare, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, along with Shala Miller, Chiedza Pasipanodya and M. NourbeSe Philip.The exhibition explores language as a mechanism to challenge the limitations of systemic definitions of Blackness. This edition holds space to reflect on the tools of language developed for perseverance and shared by our foremothers. Continuing subversive traditions practiced by writers and emancipators such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Yvonne Vera, Octavia Butler, Audre Lorde, Harriet Jacobs to contemporaries M. NourbeSe Philip, Dionne Brand and Jael Richardson – the artists use embodied labour practices, mark making, repetition and the sonic vernacular to expand and dismantle singular ideas of Blackness. What happens when we free language from the page and allow it to become spatial, audible or sculptural?
As poets, teachers, learners and makers jamilah malika abu-bakare, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Shala Miller, Chiedza Pasipanodya and M.NourbeSe Philip work with film, photography, audio, sculpture and text on and off the page to play with the materiality of words. Drawing upon ancestral knowledge these artists are inherently bound to a lineage of makers who provide the speculative blueprint to claim agency, to navigate the effects of colonial language, to contend and dream before and beyond our lifetimes.
To revisit these ideas after the first iteration, in a world starkly transformed from six years ago; after the killing of George Floyd and the uprisings that followed, after the pandemic, through financial upheaval, an enduring Western-supported genocide and rising global fascism, it is necessary to consider the visceral and real weight of our time that lays bare the machinations of colonial, capitalist systems that prioritize financial gain over life. ___a lineage of transgression___ aims to nurture hope and build collective energy for the struggles we face.
Curated by Liz Ikiriko in January 2020, the exhibition ___a lineage of transgression___ featured works by jamilah malika abu-bakare & Kameelah Janan Rasheed at Artspace Peterborough. Five years later, the exhibition was resurrected and re-envisioned at Artspeak in Vancouver. Co-curated by Liz Ikiriko and Nya Lewis, the 2025 edition included the works of jamilah malika abu-bakare, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, along with Shala Miller, Cecily Nicholson and M. NourbeSe Philip.
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Presented with the support of the MAI, Montreal
Image Credit: Installation view of Primitive Hypertext (After Octavia Estelle Butler), VIII (2025) by Kameelah Janan Rasheed. Courtesy of the artist.
Public Programming
Opening Reception
Thursday, February 12, 2026
6PM-8PM
Please join us for the opening reception of ___a lineage of transgression___ at Gallery TPW on Thursday, February 12th from 6PM-8PM.
Artist Bios
jamilah malika abu-bakare
jamilah malika abu-bakare (she/her) received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago in 2019. abu-bakare's works contemplate refusal, repetition, dedication, and intimacy through sound art, video essay, text off-page and installation. By considering sound over sight, the artist moves both her subject and the audience towards freedom. She is currently based in Morocco.
Kameelah Janan Rasheed
A learner, Kameelah Janan Rasheed (she/her) explores communication practices and poetics across all species, states of living, states of consciousness, and substrates. She creates sprawling, “architecturally-scaled” installations; public installations; publications; prints; performances; performance scores; poems; video; learning environments and other forms yet to be determined. She is on faculty at the Yale School of Art, MFA Sculpture Department, and an instructor at the School for Poetic Computation. Rasheed founded Orange Tangent Study, a consulting business that provides artist microgrants and supports individuals and institutions in designing expansive and liberatory learning experiences. She is currently based in NYC.
Shala Miller
Shala (pronounced shay-luhh) Miller, also known as Freddie June when they sing, was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio by two Southerners named Al and Ruby. At around the age of 10 or 11, Miller discovered quietude, the kind you’re sort of pushed into, and then was fooled into thinking that this is where they should stay put. Since then, Miller has been trying to find their way out, and find their way into an understanding of themself and their history, using photography, video, film, writing and singing as an aid in this process. They love to bake and consider dessert their religion.
Chiedza Pasipanodya
Chiedza Pasipanodya is a Zimbabwean-Canadian sculptor, writer and curator who investigates material logic and temporality, and challenges notions of subjectivity through a post-minimalist lens.
Drawing from African diasporic aesthetics and metaphysical inquiry, they create sculptures and installations, explore how objects are vessels for lived histories, perceptual shifts, and cultural transmission, and invite audiences to reconsider the meanings of objects, materials and sites. Currently based in Toronto.
M.NourbeSe Philip
m. nourbeSe philip is an unembedded poet-without-ambition who was born in Tobago and lives in Toronto. The author of several works of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama, she remains humbled by the risk-based act of faith that is the practice of poetry.