Camille Turner,
Pride and Possibilities, 2012
Camille Turner (b. 1960) is a Jamaican Canadian artist who works in photography, video, and performance. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, she moved with her family to Canada at age nine, eventually settling in Hamilton, Ontario. Coming of age as a Black person in Hamilton in the 1970s was rife with challenges, and Turner often felt a deep sense of exclusion in the predominantly white community. She eventually studied fine arts at OCAD and later earned an MA in Environmental Studies and a PhD in Environmental and Urban Change from York University. She currently lives in Los Angeles and Costa Rica.
Hometown Queen is a series of six photographs that depict Turner dressed as her performance alter ego, Miss Canadiana, posed in front of photographs of the steel-industry town of Hamilton. Since 2002, Turner has used the figure of Miss Canadiana in pageant-queen regalia to question perceptions about what it means to be Canadian. Often the audiences she encountered thought that being both Black and a symbol for Canada were at odds, and that Blackness was not a part of the Canadian Identity. Turner has said, “No matter how long I live in Canada, no matter that I’ve lived here most of my life, when will I ever be Canadian? The feeling of otherness is so common.” And so for years, Turner as Miss Canadiana infiltrated cultural events, exhibitions, and literary launches around the world to disrupt and subvert expectations, including at the celebrated exhibition Fashionality at the McMichael in 2012.
The Hometown Queen series marks Miss Canadiana’s return to Canada after a worldwide tour. In the photos she charismatically poses in her signature red gown, tiara, and sash. Behind her are sepia-toned snapshots of Hamilton’s steel mills, where her father worked as a boilermaker. In these photos, Turner disrupts the national myth of what “Canadian” really is, calling for a greater multiplicity of identities to be celebrated here.
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