Biennial of Art at the Aga Khan Museum

Exhibiting Artist: Dawit L. Petros

Emergent Formation, 2026

Emergent Formation will consider the lasting implications of an 1884 British Empire military mission which set in motion an extraordinary collision of worlds. As documented in participant’s accounts, the expedition included British, Irish, Scottish, Indian, Egyptian, and Sudanese workers, as well as 379 voyageurs from across Canada. Among the 379 Canadian boatmen recruited for this military rescue mission in Khartoum, Sudan, were more than 100 Métis, Mohawk, and Haudenosaunee men — skilled navigators whose river mastery had already been called upon during the Red River Expedition of 1870 in newly formed Manitoba. These were people whose homelands had been profoundly disrupted by colonial forces, now hauling wooden whaling boats against the Nile’s fierce currents, wading through rapids, and undertaking grueling portages across the Nile River delta.

Petros will examine the visual and textual languages used to depict the expedition, focusing on how its diverse participants and the environments they moved through were represented. He will incorporate archival materials – maps, illustrations, banners, images of boats, and historical photographs produced in Canada, Britain, Egypt, and Sudan – to explore and question how this multicultural encounter was documented and understood.  Collectively, these works link events, communities, languages, and geographies often imagined as remote from one another. Petros’s art responds to this complex event through multiple site interventions displayed throughout the Aga Khan Museum’s public spaces.

Petros work will be installed in three phases at the Aga Khan Museum starting on July 18, 2026.  It will be completed for the opening of the 2026 Toronto Biennial of Art on September 26.

Aga Khan Museum at the 2026 Toronto Biennial of Art

The Aga Khan Museum is proud to partner with the Toronto Biennial of Art 2026, one of Canada’s leading contemporary art events, transforming the city into a vibrant landscape of artistic discovery, dialogue, and imagination from September 26 to December 20, 2026.

Under the theme Things Fall Apart, this year’s Biennial brings together international artists across the GTA’s cultural institutions, public spaces, and communities, whose work confronts moments of upheaval and change while revealing the possibilities that emerge in their wake. Across the city, powerful new installations, performances, and exhibitions invite visitors to consider how histories are shaped, challenged, and reimagined.

As a Biennial partner, the Aga Khan Museum provides a natural home for these global conversations. Through art that crosses borders, cultures, and disciplines, the Museum becomes a space where visitors can encounter new perspectives, uncover untold stories, and engage with some of the most compelling artistic voices of our time.

This year’s exhibiting artist is Dawit L. Petros, with the installation Emergent Formation, 2026.