Torkwase Dyson: The Distance Inside Us (Bird and Lava)

Look for three shapes. The square is the box Henry "Box" Brown had himself shipped north in, the triangle is the garret where Harriet Jacobs hid from her enslaver, and the curve is the ship's hull where Anthony Burns stowed away. Dyson strips these hiding places down to geometry she calls hypershapes.

Her first solo show in Canada fills all three of the Goldfarb's galleries with the Bird and Lava series: painting, sculpture, drawing, projected animation and sound, together for the first time. The palette is spare and dark. The Clearing paintings start from the forest clearing in Toni Morrison's Beloved, where Baby Suggs calls people out of the trees to laugh, dance and cry. Once you know the code, each canvas reads as a route out.

The curator's online essay ties the work to bitumen extraction in Alberta and Trinidad; read it first. Entry is free, Tuesday to Saturday, noon to 5pm, near York University station on Line 1. Dyson speaks at York's Alchemy Lecture on 29 October.