December 14, 2021

SCOTIABANK CONTACT PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES HIGHLIGHTS OF ITS 26th EDITION IN 2022

Toronto’s preeminent month-long festival each May presents an outstanding roster of established and emerging Canadian and international lens-based artists

Toronto, Ontario, Canada… Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival today  announced highlights of the 26th edition of the city-wide event spanning the month of May 2022. Canadian and international artists will present lens-based works in exhibitions, site-specific installations, and commissioned projects at museums, galleries, and public spaces across Toronto. The preliminary list of artists includes Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Farah Al Qasimi, Lara Almarcegui, Claudia Andujar, Deanna Bowen, Sandra Brewster, Jorian Charlton, Kota Ezawa, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Sasha Huber, Mahtab Hussain, Onyeka Igwe, Vid Ingelevics & Ryan Walker, Brendan George Ko, Kwasi Kyei, Kadine Lindsay, Andréanne Michon, Tyler Mitchell, Esmaa Mohamoud, Suzanne Morrissette with Clayton Morrissette, Gisela Motta & Leandro Lima, Aïda Muluneh, Shirin Neshat, Bidemi Oloyede, Oluseye, Frida Orupabo, Rajni Perera, Vivek Shraya, and Ilene Sova. Projects by artists rescheduled from 2021 include Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukács, Wendy Coburn, and Alberto Giuliani.

CONTACT presents work by a diversity of acclaimed and emerging artists, documentary photographers, and photojournalists in locations across the Greater Toronto Area. Each year, the Festival expands to reach many different communities and reflect the work of not only local artists, but also artists who bring an international perspective to the city. Themes addressed in 2022 reflect many of the ongoing conflicts and global unrest of the present day. Subjects include the state of the environment and the impact of humanity and geopolitics on climate change; Black culture and identity; effects of and responses to colonialism and systemic racism; and perspectives on land, borders, intergenerational knowledge, and histories.

CONTACT continues to center BIPOC voices through projects that confront local and global realities to broaden knowledge and stimulate conversation. The Festival aims to provide opportunities for meaningful dialogue by fostering creative engagements between contemporary artists and the eminent local and international curators of our time, whose critical perspectives amplify the power of photography and bring new perspectives to the public discourse. Curators participating in the 2022 Festival include: AXIS Curatorial (Noor Alé & Claudia Mattos), Tairone Bastien, Chris Boot, Roya DelSol, Anique Jordan, Sara Knelman, Andrea Kunard, Zun Lee and Sophie Hackett, Courtnay McFarlane, Memory Work Collective, Gaëlle Morel, Crystal Mowry, Michèle Pearson Clarke, Sarah Quinton, and Mark Sealy, among many more.

“We are pleased to offer a preview of the exciting line-up of participating artists, with some projects remaining on view beyond May. We look forward to working with the artists, many of whom will create site-specific works for our Core exhibitions and outdoor installations. The CONTACT team is also thrilled to welcome back many of our longstanding partners and sponsors who continue to support one of the world’s top photography festivals,” said CONTACT Executive Director Darcy Killeen.

Preview of CONTACT 2022 artists

Tyler Mitchell

CONTACT Gallery | Metro Hall | Toronto Billboards

Curated by Mark Sealy

May 1 – June 30, 2022

Tyler Mitchell is an African American photographer who works in fashion, documentary, and art photography, as well as film projects, which include 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?” Mitchell’s exhibition in three parts, sited at distinct locations across the city, represents his first solo exhibition in Canada.

Mitchell made history by photographing Beyoncé for Vogue's September 2018 cover—the first Black person to do so in the magazine's history. He is part of a new generation of image-makers reshaping the lens through which we see culture. Mitchell’s presentations are curated by British curator and cultural historian Mark Sealy, whose focus is photography’s relationship to social change, identity politics, and human rights.

Deanna Bowen | Black Drones in the Hive

Ryerson Image Centre | Main Gallery

Curated by Crystal Mowry

April 29 – August 6, 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.

Sandra Brewster | Walking the Don

Evergreen Brick Works

Curated by Kari Cwynar and Charlene K. Lau May 1 – October 31, 2022

Sandra Brewster’s outdoor installation Walking the Don connects surrounding communities with her work in Toronto’s ravines, contributing Black diasporic narratives to the urban wilderness. Based on research on Black experiences in the outdoors gathered in collaboration with writer, traveler, and scholar Jacqueline L. Scott, Brewster’s series features documentation of plant life from around Evergreen Brick Works and Don River Valley Park. The images are embedded along the southern portion of the Beltline Trail, leading and accompanying residents and visitors on their own walk towards the Brick Works site.

Memory Work Collective | Memory Work

The Bentway

Curated by Memory Work Collective

May 1, 2022 – April 30, 2023

Memory Work is a mixed-media mural that imagines a future of Toronto characterized by collective care and the application of ancestral knowledge to technology. Installed at The Bentway’s Strachan Gate, this series of embellished photographic portraits tells the story of a cohort of women leaders in Toronto 2038. Memory Work invites audiences to explore possible roles and ways of being—the cosmetic healer, the creative biologist, the purposeful placement officer—that our changing city might one day require or aspire to.

Aïda Muluneh | Water Life

Textile Museum of Canada

Curated by Sarah Quinton

April 6 – September 25, 2022

Aïda Muluneh created Water Life in the arid salt flats region of Dallol, Afar, in Northern Ethiopia—one of the hottest places on earth. This 2018 photographic series drives attention to people around the world who suffer from lack of access to clean water. The artist’s striking images are of women wearing dramatic garments whose graphic forms are derived from regional Ethiopian dress. They also make formal connections to textiles across cultures. This tension relates to women’s health, sanitation, and education the world over. Muluneh transforms often-clichéd depictions of African life into powerful pictures of women and social activism.

Frida Orupabo | Woman with snake

460 King St. W, north façade

Curated by Bonnie Rubenstein

April 28 – June 30, 2022

Exploring questions of race, gender, culture, class, and their complex intersections, Frida Orupabo fuses together varied sources of archival materials to question colonial and modern representations of Black womanhood. Positioned on the façade of a Victorian-era building, monumental images by the Oslo-based, Nigerian Norwegian artist portray Black women’s bodies as sites of knowledge and empowerment.

Esmaa Mohamoud | The Brotherhood FUBU (For Us, By Us)

Westin Harbour Castle Conference Centre, west façade – now on view until April 1, 2023

Harbour Square Park, May 1, 2022 – April 30, 2025

Curated by Bonnie Rubenstein

Focusing on the physical connection between Black male bodies by amplifying the symbol of the du-rag, Esmaa Mohamoud confronts the dynamics of gender and race. Her massive photographic mural, the first phase (launched in 2021) of a two-part commissioned project, asserts a commanding occupation of public space. Foregrounding two men within an expansive scene, the Toronto- and Markham-based artist opens a powerful dialogue about systemic inequity while signaling positive change. The second phase of the project will feature a du-rag inspired bronze sculptural commission that will be positioned in nearby Harbour Square Park.

Supported by the City of Toronto, Cindy and Shon Barnett, Dara and Marvin Singer, and Partners in Art (Founding Patron). Part of ArtworxTO: Toronto’s Year of Public Art 2021–2022.

CONTACT will once again host an exhibition of work by the New Generation Photography Award recipients organized by the National Gallery of Canada in partnership with Scotiabank. The award recognizes outstanding photographic work by three emerging Canadian lens-based artists, age 35 and under. The 2022 winners will be announced in February 2022. CONTACT will also celebrate The Prefix Prize, an annual award designed to honour artists of any nationality at any stage of their careers who have yet to receive the recognition they deserve. Launched in 2021, the prize consists of an exhibition, a publication, and a cash award.

Preliminary List of Partners

CONTACT’s 2022 program of Exhibitions and Public Installations is developed through collaborations with partners across Toronto, including: A Space Gallery; Aga Khan Museum + Park; Allied Properties; Art Gallery of Ontario; ArtworxTO; Toronto’s Year of Public Art 2021–2022; BAND Gallery; The Bentway Conservancy; Brookfield Place; City of Toronto; Critical Distance Centre for Curators; Doris McCarthy Gallery; Evergreen Brick Works; Gallery 44; Gallery TPW; Goethe Air Space; Harbour Square Park; Harbourfront Centre; John B. Aird Gallery; Koffler Gallery; McMichael Canadian Art Collection; Mercer Union; Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (MOCA); Onsite Gallery; Pattison Outdoor Advertising; Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives; The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery; Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art; Ryerson Image Centre; Ryerson University; St. Lawrence Market; Textile Museum of Canada; Trinity Square Video; Waterfront Toronto; The Westin Harbour Castle; and Yonge-Dundas Square. 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, City of Toronto, Cultural Services of the Embassy of France in Canada, Destination Toronto, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, La Fondation Emmanuelle Gattuso, Ontario Arts Council, Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport, 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 program of primary exhibitions of works by local and international artists including collaborations with major museums, galleries, and artist-run centers, and site-specific public art projects are the core of the Festival. 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. Given potential COVID restrictions, the Festival may have to curtail some of their in-person programming in 2022.  Please check the CONTACT website for updates.

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, Steam Whistle, Toronto Image Works, The Gilder, Transcontinental PLM, and Waddington's Auctioneers and Appraisers. Media Sponsors: Artnet, Art Daily, Art Papers, Aperture, blogTO, British Journal of Photography, CBC Toronto, Contemporary And, Hyperallergic, Momus, NOW Magazine, and The Globe and Mail.

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