Make Trouble

Make Trouble (2024) is a newly commissioned four-panel photo-based installation. The work stems from Sandra’s ongoing research on being and place. It draws inspiration from Fred Moten’s 2007 lecture, “Black Optimism / Black Operation,” and in particular, references the Child Development Group of Mississippi’s freedom song, “Da da da da.” For this installation, Sandra utilizes personal childhood photographs to construct an archival narrative, encapsulating Moten’s idea that “these children are the voices of the future in the past, the voices of the future in our present.”

Sandra Brewster works across various mediums, including drawing, video, photo-based works, and installation, to explore themes of identity, representation, and movement, highlighting the importance of documentation in place-making and cultural narratives. She manipulates old photographs, centring the people within them, and her use of metaphor transforms landscapes. Sandra, who is of Guyanese descent, often references Caribbean migration in her work, implying the formation of an identity that spans multiple geographies and times that embodies a diasporic character.

Commissioned by the Toronto Biennial of Art and made possible with the generous support of the Women Leading Initiative.