Still Tho: Aesthetic Survival in Hip-Hop’s Visual Art 
Curated by Mark V. Campbell

This exhibition is available from Saturday, September 21st to Saturday, November 23rd at the MSVU Gallery. Free to view. 

MSVU Art Gallery

In Collaboration with

Dr. Mark V. Campbell is the founder of Northside Hip-Hop Archive, and he has spent two decades in the Toronto hip-hop scene djing on the Bigger Than Hip-Hop radio show from 1998-2015. Since the launch of Northside in 2010, Mark has curated exhibitions of archival items and artistic works related to Canadian hip-hop on three continents, including The T-Dot Pioneers Trilogy, 2010-2013, Mixtapes: Hip-Hop’s Lost Archive, …Everything Remains Raw: Photographing Toronto Hip-Hop Culture from Analogue to Digital as part of the 2018 Contact Festival exhibition at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, and For the Record: An Idea of the North at the TD Gallery in Toronto.

Mark’s research explores the relationships between Afrosonic innovations and notions of the human. He is Associate Chair in the Arts, Culture and Media department, the 2020-21 Jackman Humanities Institute UTSC Fellow and a Connaught Early Career Fellow at the University of Toronto. In 2015, Mark was appointed Member of the Board at the Ontario Arts Council and has served on juries for the Toronto Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, The United Way Peel, Social Science and Humanities Council of Canada, and the City of Toronto.

Still Tho: Aesthetic Survival in Hip-Hop’s Visual Art

Still Tho is an ode to the visual artists in Canada who shaped hip-hop culture and its aesthetics. Through their art, they have placed justice front and centre to inspire social change at home and around the world. The phrase “Still Tho” in the exhibition’s title refers to a common expression that speaks to acts of artists’ perseverance, overcoming numerous barriers to make art and build community. While some aspects of hip-hop’s early years in the late-1970s and early-1980s have been well archived, visual works from that period were mostly temporary. Artists often overwrote one another’s graffiti, while the natural elements destroyed outdoor murals. The mixed-media works in this exhibition explore how hip-hop’s visual artists have woven together historical, nostalgic, and archival elements to leave a physical legacy. Moreover, the exhibition highlights the lasting impact of hip-hop’s visual art on both Canadian culture and visual aesthetics in our digital age.

Featured Artists

Corey Bulpitt
Curly
EGR
Eklipz 
Elicser Elliot
Kalkidan Assefa
Mark Valino
Mark Stoddart
Mique Michelle
MissMe
Nelson “Dedos” Garcia
Stare
Wizwon (Jayde Goodon)