Toronto’s Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival Launches 26th Edition

For its 26th edition, the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival continues its commitment to supporting an exceptional range of projects by lens-based artists from Canada and around the world in a diverse array of exhibitions in museums, galleries, public sites, and alternative spaces throughout Toronto. 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.

American artist Tyler Mitchell (b. 1995) is featured in a multi-faceted exhibition titled Cultural Turns, which includes work on view at CONTACT Gallery as well as in outdoor installations at Toronto’s Metro Hall and on two downtown billboards during the month of May. Curated by British cultural historian Mark Sealy, PhD, OBE, director of Autograph ABP, the project represents Mitchell’s first solo exhibition in Canada and his first public installation work.

Anastasia Samoylova, “Fountain” (2017) (image courtesy the artist)

Among the many Canadian, Indigenous, and international artists represented in the 2022 festival are Farah Al Qasimi, Claudia Andujar, Atong Atem, Raymond Boisjoly, Sandra Brewster, Sophie Calle, Jorian Charlton, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Margit Lukács & Persijn Broersen, Meryl McMaster, Memory Work Collective, Esmaa Mohamoud, Gisela Motta & Leandro Lima, Shirin Neshat, Rajni Perera, Anastasia Samoylova, Jeff Thomas, and Natalie Wood. Their works explore pressing contemporary issues, from notions of global diaspora, Blackness, colonial residues, and tactics of resistance to humanity’s effects on the climate, its relationships to nature, and the envisioning of hopeful alternate futures.

Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival also aims to provide opportunities for meaningful dialogue by fostering creative engagements between contemporary artists and notable local and international curators. Curators participating in the 2022 festival include AXIS Curatorial (Noor Alé & Claudia Mattos), Tairone Bastien, Roya DelSol, Sara Knelman, Andrea Kunard, Zun Lee and Sophie Hackett, Courtnay McFarlane, Gaëlle Morel, Crystal Mowry, Michèle Pearson Clarke, and Sarah Quinton, among many others.

For further information on the 140+ exhibitions in this year’s festival, visit scotiabankcontactphoto.com.

Mahtab Hussain, “Tajvin Kazi and Rishada Majeed” (2021), from the ongoing series Muslims in America (image courtesy the artist and Chris Boot, © Mahtab Hussain)