FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
 
(Toronto, ON) February 26, 2013 -- Nia Centre for the Arts is proud to partner with Onyx Society of OCAD and Northsidehiphop.ca to showcase T-Dot Pioneers 3.0: The Future Must Be Replenished at Toronto’s elegant SOHO Lobby Gallery from March 7 through April 26, 2013.
 
The opening reception for T-Dot Pioneers 3.0: The Future Must Be Replenished takes place on Thursday, March 7 from 7 – 9 pm at the SOHO Lobby Gallery (36 Blue Jays Way, at Wellington Street West).
 
Funded by the Ontario Arts Council, the exhibit is the final installment in a trilogy paying homage to Toronto’s rich hip hop history. The original T-Dot Pioneers exhibit at the Toronto Free Gallery in 2010 showcased a collection of memorabilia from 1987-2009. The expanded version, T-Dot Pioneers: The Glenn Gould Remix, was a prominent feature in CBC’s Hip Hop Summit in 2011. T-Dot Pioneers 3.0: The Future Must Be Replenished features the creative ingenuity of nine emerging visual and mixed media artists paying their respect to the foundation of Toronto’s hip hop scene. The artists are members of the Onyx Society at OCAD, a student-run community and support network for students of African descent.
 
“Providing emerging artists with opportunities to exhibit their work is integral to the development of a vibrant and diverse creative culture in Toronto,” says Dr. Mark V. Campbell, Executive Director of Nia Centre for the Arts. “Nia Centre is proud to partner with the Onyx Society of OCAD on this pivotal exploration of hip hop culture.”
 
Campbell is the visionary behind the T-Dot Pioneers series, and is also the Founder of Northsidehiphop.ca, an online archive for information on Canadian hip hop.
 
Through T-Dot Pioneers 3.0: The Future Must Be Replenished, these talented emerging artists explore the aesthetic legacies and futures of hip hop cultures in Toronto and beyond.
 
SOHO Lobby Gallery’s Director of Exhibitions, Nadia Galati, says “I’m thrilled to showcase T-Dot Pioneers 3.0 as the SOHO Lobby Gallery’s inaugural exhibition.  In keeping with the gallery’s dedication to showcasing work of emerging artists, the cross-disciplinary show is a case in point of the power youth brings to visual communication practices. These artists demonstrate a remarkable ability to balance both an aesthetically rich exploration of innovation in hip hop culture while concurrently responding to its history. T-Dot Pioneers 3.0 is significant in the history of Canadian art and merits the attention of a wider audience.”
 
For more information, please visit:
www.soholobbygallery.com/about/t-dot-pioneers
www.facebook.com/onyxso
www.northsidehiphop.ca
www.niacentre.org                                                                                                 
 
Background on Nia Centre for the Arts:
 

Founded in 2009, Nia Centre for the Arts is a Toronto-based not-for-profit organization focused on the holistic development of Afro-diasporic young people through photography, music, videography, drama, visual arts, dance, spoken word, and other community arts.
 
Nia Centre provides programming and services to engage young people artistically, politically, emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually in order to support the development of healthy identities and positive life choices.

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Media Contact:
Aisha Wickham
Director, Communications & Operations
Nia Centre for the Arts
416-535-2727 or awickham@niacentre.org