Ignatius Baker: Belonging
We’re so excited to present our first rOGUE Gallery exhibition of 2025! Ignatius Baker’s show Belonging will be opening with a reception on Friday, January 31st from 6-8pm. We will have lots of snacks and refreshments as usual! We look forward to seeing you there! Click here to RSVP to the Facebook event.
Belonging is a series of screen prints started during my residency at St. Michael’s Printshop in the fall of 2023. Belonging is about finding a sense of belonging through swimming with other trans people and allies in nature. Bodies of water bring together the trans and queer community, offering a place of healing, outside of the confining limits of the city. Away from the rigidity of institutions and their binaries, space is made to find easier company in each other. It is where I started to find confidence in my body after transition, a time when I felt vulnerable and like I no longer belonged. It is a space I returned to during the pandemic for calm and through which I connected to my queer and neurodiverse friends to find joy. I wanted to create a series that celebrates this love for pond swimming.
Ignatius Baker is a white settler artist born and based in the ancestral homelands of the Beothuk, colonially known as St. John’s, NL (Ktaqmkuk). He works in analog and digital mediums to explore themes around the human body and nature, as well as queerness and imagination. He was a resident artist at St. Michael’s Printshop in 2023 where he screen printed photographs taken during his trips to swimming spots around St. John’s, culminating in a body of work called Belonging. During his VANL Mentorship with Tanea Hynes, he completed a screen print project called While I’m With You exploring his relationship to the East Coast Trail as a meeting place of belonging around his trans and queer identity.
Photo Documentation
Photo Credit: Laura Sbrizzi
Check out the 360° scan below to view the exhibition virtually!