Canadian and international artists will
present a diversity of lens-based
projects in museums, galleries, public spaces
across Toronto and online
TORONTO, April 27,
2022 /CNW/ - Today, the Scotiabank CONTACT
Photography Festival announced the full program for the
26th edition of the city-wide event launching in May,
with some projects taking place later in 2022. The Festival
features over 140 exhibitions by Canadian and international
lens-based artists who will present an array of projects online and
in museums, galleries, and public spaces across Toronto. Artists include Stephen Andrews, Claudia
Andujar, Atong Atem,
Raymond Boisjoly, Sandra Brewster, Sophie
Calle, Jorian Charlton,
Sunil Gupta, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Brendan George Ko, Meryl
McMaster, Memory Work Collective, Tyler Mitchell, Gisela
Motta & Leandro Lima,
Aïda Muluneh, Shirin Neshat,
Anastasia Samoylova, Jeff Thomas, Natalie
Wood, and many more. Click here for further
information on these artists' exhibitions and installations.
The Festival is free and open to the public, with some exceptions
at major museums. CONTACT fosters creative engagement and
meaningful dialogue between contemporary artists and the
public.
"The range of artists that we have gathered for this year's
edition of CONTACT truly span the globe and bring insights and
observations on so many different cultural, political, and
environmental issues. The entire CONTACT team is honoured to have
such a diversity of talent on view in Toronto, and we thank our
many partners and supporters for making all
of this possible," said CONTACT Executive
Director Darcy Killeen.
Showcasing exceptional projects by Canadian and international
photographers and lens-based artists, the Festival's Core Program
critically and creatively frames the social, cultural, and
political events of our times. For CONTACT's 26th
edition there are over 60 Core Program exhibitions produced in
collaboration with major museums, leading galleries, and artist-run
centres presented throughout Greater
Toronto alongside a slate of commissioned,
site-specific outdoor installations that activate the
city in unique ways. The Core Program is supported by the
Festival's Public Programs which include photobook initiatives,
lectures, artist talks, panel discussions, workshops, and more.
Click here for further information on Public Programs.
The 2022 Festival will also include over 80 Open Call
Exhibitions that embody a broad range of lens-based practices, and
bring together the photographic community with innovative
presentations at galleries and alternative spaces across the city
spotlighting submissions of work by emerging to experienced
photographers. Collectively, these foundational components of the
Festival generate a vast, immersive experience of photography for
communities across Toronto,
Canada, and internationally.
Some highlights of the 2022 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography
Festival:
Tyler
Mitchell
Presented across three sites in Toronto, the work of African American
photographer Tyler Mitchell brings a
bold vision to the city and his first solo exhibition in
Canada. His vibrant images richly
portray the beauty, presence, and self-assurance of Black lives,
referencing the rich history of Black photography while proposing
new futures. Curated by Mark Sealy OBE.
Cultural Turns – CONTACT Gallery, 80 Spadina Ave., Ste
205. April 28 – June 30, 2022
The CONTACT Gallery will display an array of Mitchell's recent
photographic works, including autobiographical topics and themes of
identity. Mitchell refers to his practice as a "Black utopic
vision, in which the young Black men and women around me look
dignified, are presented as a community, and also ask the tough
questions in terms of: what are the things we've been historically
denied?" Presented by CONTACT. Supported by Cindy and Shon Barnett.
Cultural Turns – Metro Hall, King St. W at John St.
April 28 – May
30, 2022
In this outdoor installation at Metro Hall, Mitchell's 13
larger-than-life portraits, in curator Mark
Sealy's words, "produce a defiant sense of Black being, one
that sheds the degrading skins of categorization and classification
so evident in photography's past." Presented by CONTACT.
Supported by Cindy and Shon Barnett.
Part of ArtworxTO: Toronto's Year
of Public Art 2021–2022.
Cultural Turns – Billboards in Toronto at Dovercourt Rd. and Dupont St.
April 29 – May
30, 2022
In these two images, Mitchell brings the powerful gaze of
the Black subject into focus while opening portals into intimate
narratives. Presented by CONTACT. Supported by PATTISON
Outdoor Advertising, and by Cindy and Shon
Barnett. Part of ArtworxTO: Toronto's Year of Public Art 2021–2022.
Sandra
Brewster
Roots – Evergreen Brick Works.
Curated by Kari Cwynar and
Charlene K. Lau. May 1 – October 31,
2022
In this outdoor photographic installation, Toronto-based artist Sandra Brewster explores the long history of
Black presence in the urban wilderness. Developed during her artist
residency at Evergreen Brick Works, the photographs
in Roots document the area's plant life in ways
that reflect on unceded territories, diasporic migrations, and the
need to foster safe, outdoor experiences for Black communities.
Brewster's images are embedded along the Beltline Trail, greeting
visitors as they explore the valley. Presented in partnership with
Evergreen Brick Works. Part of ArtworxTO: Toronto's Year of Public Art 2021–2022.
Jorian
Charlton
Presented across two sites and online,
Canadian photographer Jorian
Charlton celebrates Black lives through a range of museum,
outdoor, and virtual exhibitions.
Out of Many – Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas Street West. Curated by
Emilie Croning. On view until
August 7, 2022
In 2017, Toronto-based
photographer Jorian Charlton
received a collection of 35mm slides from her father for
safekeeping. These images—his photographs from Jamaica, New York, and Toronto, taken between the late 1970s and the
late 1980s—reveal the artist's family lineage. Out of
Many pairs Charlton's photographic practice alongside her
father's images, creating an intergenerational dialogue that
explores the family album in a contemporary context. Presented by
the Art Gallery of Ontario in
collaboration with Wedge Curatorial Projects and Gallery TPW.
Georgia – 460 King
Street West, North façade. Curated by Solana Cain. May 1
– 31, 2022
Charlton uses the power of the gaze to reclaim the Black
experience in this large-format mural featuring a model named
Georgia, shown unabashedly
caressing herself with fingers adorned in multi-coloured, manicured
nails. Standing tall and asserting herself, she confronts the
viewer while commanding the space around her. Presented on the
façade of a Victorian-era building, the work challenges colonial
histories and practices of portraiture. Presented by CONTACT in
partnership with Cooper Cole
Gallery. Part of ArtworxTO: Toronto's Year of Public Art 2021–2022.
fi di gyal dem, Digital exhibition. Curated by
Roya DelSol. May 5 –
August 25, 2022
This online exhibition of works by Charlton and visual artist
Kadine Lindsay, presented by
Doris McCarthy Gallery, is an
intimate celebration of the interior lives of Black women.
Alongside portraits, paintings, and animation, fi di gyal
dem includes a series of commissioned, collaborative mixed
media pieces. This project invites viewers to explore the
interconnections in the practices of these artists and the larger
cultural moments that inform their work. Presented by
Doris McCarthy Gallery in
partnership with CONTACT.
Brendan George
Ko
The Forest is Wired for Wisdom –
Cross-Canada Billboards + Billboards at King St W and Strachan Ave, Toronto. Curated by Tara Smith. April
29 – May 30, 2022
Toronto-based artist
Brendan George Ko is a visual
storyteller, using photography, video, and poetry to depict the
natural world. Presented on billboards in eight cities across
Canada, The Forest is Wired for Wisdom comprises a
series of luminous, almost incandescent images of flora nestled
deep under the forest canopy, paired with poignant excerpts of Ko's
own poems. Together they offer passersby moments of contemplation
and awe at nature's beauty, while pointing to the forest
ecosystem's fragile interconnectivity. Presented by CONTACT.
Supported by PATTISON Outdoor Advertising. Part of ArtworxTO:
Toronto's Year of Public Art
2021–2022.
Mahtab Hussain
An
Ocean in a Drop: Muslims in Toronto, Aga Khan Museum and Park. Curated
by Marianne Fenton.
May 20 – October 1, 2022
In his ongoing series of photographic street portraits, British
artist Mahtab Hussain addresses and
challenges the poor visibility and stereotyping of Muslims in
mainstream art and media. For this outdoor installation on the
grounds of the Aga Khan Museum, Hussain turns his lens on
Toronto's Muslim youth in ways
that bring to the fore their unique individual identities,
contributions, and perspectives. Presented by the Aga Khan
Museum in partnership with CONTACT. Part of ArtworxTO: Toronto's Year of Public Art 2021–2022.
Tajvin Kazi and Rishada Majeed, Billboards at Dupont and
Dufferin Streets. April 29 –
May 30, 2022
Presented on a billboard the image Tajvin Kazi and
Rishada Majeed continues Hussain's exploration of
contemporary Muslim identities. Shot in Toronto in 2021 as part of the
series Ocean in a Drop: Muslims in Toronto—a portion of the broader ongoing
series Muslims in America—this work echoes Hussain's
outdoor installation of works from the same series, on view at Aga
Khan Museum and Park. Presented by CONTACT. Supported by
PATTISON Outdoor Advertising. Part of ArtworxTO: Toronto's Year of Public Art 2021–2022.
Sunil Gupta
From
here to Eternity. Sunil Gupta, A
Retrospective, Ryerson Image Centre, Main Gallery. Curated by
Mark Sealy OBE. On View through August 6,
2022
This exhibition offers a layered view of artist Sunil Gupta's unique transcontinental
photographic vision, bringing together a comprehensive selection of
works from his innovative career. From his participation in
New York's radical Gay Liberation
Movement in the 1970s to his more recent campaigning in
India, Gupta has inspired
generations of photographers, artist-activists, and advocates for
LGBTQ+ rights. Co-organized by the Ryerson Image Centre and The
Photographers' Gallery (London,
UK), in collaboration with Autograph (London, UK), and presented in partnership with
CONTACT.
Jimmy Manning
Floe /
Flow, Ryerson University, Devonian
Square. Curated by Bonnie
Rubenstein. May 15 –
September 1, 2022
This site-specific installation by Kinngait-based Inuk artist
Jimmy Manning elicits a sense of awe
and of deep time, while ringing the global alarm. Conveying a
palpable tension, his delicate and haunting photographs of Arctic
icebergs fuse with the ancient Precambrian stones in Devonian Pond
to generate a new space—a composite landscape reminding viewers of
the natural world's power and beauty, while warning of things to
come. Presented by CONTACT in partnership with Ryerson University and the Ryerson Image Centre.
Part of ArtworxTO: Toronto's Year
of Public Art 2021–2022.
New Generation Photography Award
Group Exhibition,
Arsenal Contemporary Art Toronto. Curated by Andrea Kunard. April
29 – May 29, 2022
The New Generation Photography Award recognizes outstanding
photographic imagery by three emerging Canadian lens-based artists,
age 35 and under. This year's winners are Séamus Gallagher (Halifax), Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes
(Vancouver), and Clara Lacasse (Montreal), whose work explores the many
challenges in contemporary representations of identity, culture,
and the environment. The New Generation Photography Award was
founded by the National Gallery of Canada in partnership with Scotiabank.
Memory Work Collective
Memory Work, The
Bentway, Curated by Memory Work Collective. May 1, 2022 – April 30,
2023
Artists include: Robert Bolton,Tala Kamea, Rajni Perera, Jac
Sanscartier, Macy Siu,
Naomi Skwarna, Omii Thompson,
Erica Whyte and Emily Woudenberg
Situated at the Strachan Gate entrance to The
Bentway, Memory Work is a mural made up of twelve
embellished photographic portraits of revolutionary figures from a
future Toronto. Initiated by From
Later studio with artist Rajni
Perera and Memory Work Collective, this speculative monument
imagines a world characterized by collective care and politics that
value nurturing over growth. Co-presented by From Later and
The Bentway with support from CONTACT, as part of ArtworxTO:
Toronto's Year of Public Art
2021–2022. Additional support by the Canada Council for the Arts,
City of Toronto, and the Toronto
Arts Council.
Critical Distance Centre for Curators
OF THE
SACRED, Critical Distance Centre for Curators, 401 Richmond
Street West. Curated by Noor Alé and Claudia Mattos (AXIS Curatorial). April 21 – June 5,
2022
Artists include: Farah Al Qasimi,
Kaya Joan, Bea Parsons, Yelaine Rodriguez and Whyishnave
Suthagar
OF THE SACRED testifies to the survival of personal
beliefs, spiritual traditions, and religious practices in the face
of colonialism and migrations. In their practices, group of artists
trace cultural inheritances of faith, lineages of intergenerational
knowledge, and the syncretism of beliefs that emerge in times of
turbulent change and upheaval. Presented in partnership with
Critical Distance Centre for Curators.
Deanna Bowen, Scotiabank
Photography Award, 2021
Black Drones in the Hive,
Ryerson Image Centre, Main Gallery. Curated by Crystal Mowry. Fall 2022
This exhibition celebrates the visual practice of Montreal-based artist Deanna Bowen, winner of the 2021 Scotiabank
Photography Award. Originally produced by Bowen under a commission
from the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (KWAG), Black Drones in
the Hive draws its title from a historic, bigoted insult aimed
at local Black journeyman William
Robinson by a city official in Berlin, Ontario (now Kitchener) in the 1870s. Drawing
materials from the KWAG's permanent collection as well as local and
international archives, Bowen clusters historic documents,
illustrations, and publications in a series of thematic
constellations, weaving together narrative threads of migration,
racist dispossession, entrenched power networks, and hierarchies of
remembrance. Organized by the Ryerson Image Centre, presented by
Scotiabank, in partnership with CONTACT.
CONTACT Partners
CONTACT's 2022 program of Exhibitions
and Outdoor Installations is developed through collaborations with
partners across Toronto,
including: A Space Gallery; Aga Khan Museum + Park; Alliance
Française, Allied Properties; Art Gallery of Ontario; Artspace Gallery; ArtworxTO:
Toronto's Year of Public Art
2021–2022; BAND Gallery; Bunker2 Projects; The Bentway Conservancy;
Brookfield Place; Christie
Contemporary; Christopher Cutts
Gallery; City of Toronto;
Critical Distance Centre for Curators; Doris McCarthy Gallery; Evergreen Brick Works;
Gallery 44; Gallery TPW; Goethe-Institut Toronto; Harbour
Square Park; John B. Aird Gallery;
Mercer Union, a centre for contemporary art; Museum of Contemporary
Art Toronto (MOCA); National Gallery of Canada; Olga Korper
Gallery; Onsite Gallery; Pattison Outdoor Advertising; Paul
Petro Contemporary Art; Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives; the
plumb; The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery; Prefix Institute
of Contemporary Art; Ryerson Image Centre; Ryerson University; Stephen
Bulger Gallery; Textile Museum of Canada; Trinity Square Video; United
Contemporary; Waterfront Toronto; Wedge Curatorial Projects; The
Westin Harbour Castle; and Zalucky Contemporary. Additional
partners will be announced in the coming months.
CONTACT gratefully acknowledges the support of ArtworxTO:
Toronto's Year of Public Art 2021–
2022, Canada Council for the Arts, Destination Toronto, Istituto
Italiano di Cultura, La Fondation Emmanuelle Gattuso, Ontario Arts
Council, Partners in Art, and all funders, donors, and program
partners.
About Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival
CONTACT
fosters and celebrates the art and profession of photography with
its annual Festival across greater Toronto in May and year-round programming in
the CONTACT Gallery.
CONTACT presents lens-based works by acclaimed and emerging
artists, documentary photographers, and photojournalists from
Canada and around the world. The
curated Core Program includes exhibitions of works by local and
international artists presented in collaboration with major
museums, galleries, and artist-run centers, and site-specific
public art projects at unique outdoor sites across the city. These
are cultivated through partnerships, commissions, and new
discoveries, framing the cultural, social, and political events of
our times. CONTACT normally presents a wide range of programs
including a book fair, lectures, talks, panels, workshops, and
symposia during the Festival and hosts exhibitions and programs at
its Gallery throughout the year.
CONTACT is committed to promoting BIPOC artists and voices; to
generating spaces for ongoing, meaningful, and creative
Indigenous-settler dialogue; to continuous learning about our place
on this land; and to the ongoing development of meaningful
anti-oppressive practice on all levels. This includes the
continuing goal of augmenting and maintaining diverse
representation, foregrounding varied and under-represented voices
and perspectives, and continually examining the structures of power
and decision-making within the organization itself. CONTACT aims to
actively learn, grow, and embody the values of inclusivity, equity,
and accessibility in all facets of the institution, as an
ever-evolving process.
CONTACT, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1997, is
generously supported by its title sponsor Scotiabank, and Scotia
Wealth Management, as well as 3M
Canada, Beyond Digital Imaging,
BIG Digital, Four By Eight Signs, Pattison Outdoor Advertising,
Saman Design, Steam Whistle, Toronto Image Works, The Gilder,
Transcontinental PLM, Unit 11, and Waddington's.
Media Sponsors: CBC Toronto, NOW Magazine, and The
Globe and Mail.
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