Slavery North is pleased to announce the exhibition Land of the Free by Camille Turner at the University Museum of Contemporary Art.
Exhibition Dates: February 6 – May 8, 2026
Reception: Thursday, February 5, 2026, 5-7pm
Register for the Reception
Location: University Museum of Contemporary Art, Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts, 151 Presidents Drive, Amherst, MA 01003
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Friday 11am-4:30pm, Saturday and Sunday, 12-4pm
About the Exhibition:
Camille Turner is an artist and scholar whose work lives at the intersection of historical research and Afrofuturism, a movement that blends science fiction, fantasy, and Black history and culture. Turner spent the fall semester at UMass researching and creating new work as part of her joint artist residency between the museum and Slavery North, a UMass-based research initiative that interrogates overlooked histories of Transatlantic Slavery in Canada and the northern United States.
Land of the Free presents Turner’s cinematic meditations on the lives of people transported in the holds of slave ships built along the eastern seaboard of North America. At its heart is her new film, 80 Died of Flux and Flu (2025), a memorial to enslaved Africans who perished during the Atlantic crossing. Two other films, Nave (2022) and Fly (2024) honor enslaved ancestors.
In the North Gallery, Turner also presents a New England-specific installation of her ongoing Afronautic Research Lab project, which shares archival documents confronting the enduring legacy of slavery in Canada and the American North.
About the Artist:
Camille Turner puts into practice an Afronautic methodological frame she developed to approach colonial archives from the point of view of a liberated future. Turner is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design University. She recently completed a PhD at York University’s Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change and a provost’s postdoctoral fellowship at University of Toronto’s Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. Turner is the recipient of the 2022 Artist Prize by the Toronto Biennial of Art. Her artworks are held in museums and public and private collections including the National Gallery of Canada, Art Museum at University of Toronto, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Canada Council Art Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, Museum London, The Wedge Collection, The Rooms, and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.
Learn More: https://arts.umass.edu/visual-arts/exhibitions/land-of-the-free
