New Routes: threads across space and time reflects Raneece Buddan, AJA Louden, Garfield Morgan, and Elsa Robinson's investigations of how their paths as diasporic people connect their distinct artistic practices. The four artists share certain relationships to place: they all have Jamaican heritage and lived in Edmonton at the same time. Yet each of them has distinct personal and ancestral immigration stories that led to Treaty 6 territory.

About the artists

Raneece Buddan is a Jamaican visual artist who resided in Treaty 6 territory, Amiswaciwâskahikan (Edmonton). She completed her BFA in Art and Design with Distinction at the University of Alberta in 2020 and is pursuing a Masters in Sculpture at The Royal College of Art in London. Raneece received the 2025 Eldon and Anne Foote Edmonton Visual Art Prize and has been exhibited throughout Alberta at the Art Gallery of Alberta, Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Stride Gallery and more, as well as, internationally in the USA and France. She has completed Artist Residencies in Edmonton, Alberta, Salem, New York and Mandelieu-La-Napoule, France.

AJA Louden is a Jamaican-Canadian artist living and working out of amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada). Through rigorous mark making, constructions and installations, Louden builds stories and worlds that are firmly rooted in both galleries and public spaces, infused by his experience of growing up Black in the prairies. His current work focuses on the cyclical nature of power, inspired by science-fiction and historical paintings. Louden's recent use of textiles considers the roles of craft in Black communities, and the history of craft in rural Alberta in particular.

Garfield Morgan is a multidisciplinary artist who began his artistic journey as a graphic designer after graduating from the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston, Jamaica. He later pursued graduate studies in the United States, earning an MFA in Painting from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, where he was awarded the Post Graduate Fellowship in the School of Art. Garfield was selected as Harcourt House's Artist-in-Residence for the 2023-2024 term and was a summer 2025 Artist-in-Residence at Cold Hollow Sculpture Park in Enosburg, Vermont.

Elsa Robinson is a multidisciplinary artist and instructor. She combines intuition with careful attention to colour, shape, texture, and cultural symbols, to express themes of love, inner strength, and ancestral connection that guide her life. Her work creates conversation, reflection and moments of emotional connection. After working as a self-taught artist, Elsa earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art and Design (University of Alberta) and a Master of Fine Arts degree (Vermont College of Fine Art).

Elsa received the 2012 Fill Fraser Award for Outstanding Work in Visual Arts - National Black Coalition of Canada; was shortlisted for the 2022 Eldon and Anne Foote Visual Arts Prize; received The 2023 Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee Medal; and 2023 Artist of the Year RISE Award - Centre for Newcomers, Edmonton. Elsa served as board member for Harcourt House Artist Run Centre, Edmonton Arts Council, Ribbon Rouge Foundation and Latitude53 Gallery.