First, I Was the Horizon
Racquel Rowe
September 12th – November 7th, 2026
Window Gallery
First, I Was the Horizon (2026) explores world building, folklore, and the Caribbean landscape, through a Black feminist lens. Using digital collage, the island is layered, flattened, deconstructed and reconstructed to create new site of refuge. One that imagines our archipelago of paradise as a new space of sovereignty for its inhabitants.
In creating an island that does not exist, how might we continue to think differently about the preservation of our own spaces, heritage, and culture, outside of ongoing colonial land erasure, disruption, and cultivation.
Each image in the constellation, inserts the Black female body into the landscape, at rest, play, and leisure, juxtaposing traditional visual narratives of the region that position these bodies at work, in service. The body is photographed within the water, tidepools, along the coastline, and rivers and then put back into the landscapes various times, resulting in a new image, or place.
Racquel Rowe
Racquel Rowe is an interdisciplinary artist from the island of Barbados currently residing in Canada. Her art practice explores Caribbean visual culture, cooking with her granny, the sea, Caribbean landscapes, and the intersections of memory, migration, and diasporic identity through contemporary video, performance, and installation.
She spends a lot of time while in Barbados, thinking about the way the light hits the surface of the water at the beach, and the way the mid afternoon sun creates shadows in the landscape. When not shadow gazing, Rowe is a PhD Candidate in Art and Visual Culture at Western University, and has an MFA (2021) from the University of Waterloo and a BA (2019) from the University of Guelph.
Rowe's studio practice has been recognized in solo and group exhibitions across Canada. Recent solo exhibitions include Breaking the Surface (2026) at Art Windsor Essex, The centre of the world was the beach (2025) at Forest City Gallery, and Saltwater Cures All (2024) at Tom Thomson Gallery. Her practice has been supported by grants such as Canada Council for the Arts Research-Creation Grant (2023) and the Ontario Arts Council Exhibition Assistance Grants (2022-2024).
