Installation view of Chris Curreri, The Ventriloquist, at Daniel Faria Gallery. A Featured Exhibition in CONTACT 2019. Photo courtesy of the artist and Daniel Faria Gallery.
The Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival in Toronto invites participation from photographic artists for May 2020, either as a Featured Exhibition or an Open Call Exhibition.
The Featured Exhibitions program showcases exceptional photo-based projects. Featured Exhibitions are subject to a juried submission process, and are eligible for The Gattuso Prize, a $5,000 award that acknowledges an outstanding exhibition in this program.
The Open Call Exhibitions program provides a valuable opportunity to have photographic work exhibited in conjunction with other emerging and established artists. Open Call Exhibitions are non-juried and are therefore accessible to all interested participants and exhibition spaces.
All artists/organizers must have a confirmed exhibition space in order to participate in CONTACT. A participation fee applies:
Early bird fee (available until November 11, 2019) $275 + HST
There is still time to check out the Gallery 44 group show ‘Spectra’ in the Artscape Youngplace 3rd floor Hallway Gallery! ‘Spectra’ showcases work that represents a variety of photographic concepts and techniques, celebrates artistic practice, and reveals ways seemingly disparate work can intersect. Spectra reflects the spirit embodied by the community of Gallery 44.
Akin Sunrise artist Janne Reuss is exhibiting photography in this exhibition along with other members of Gallery 44 as a part of the CONTACT Photography Festival. ‘Spectra’ runs until June 1, 2019.
Artscape Youngplace Hallway Galleries, 3rd Floor 180 Shaw Street, Toronto Hours: 8:00am-8:00pm About Janne Reuss: Janne Reuss is a multidisciplinary and conceptually driven artist. Her work addresses the existential and cultural human conditions of freedom, confinement, as well as identity; especially from the female point of view, which she often performs and photographs. The spaces she creates are ambiguous and multilayered inviting the viewer to contemplate. Reuss cuts her photographs and rearranges the fragments manually. The resulting handmade collages are then scanned and printed as photographs. The final work consists of the initial original photomontage and a small edition of 3-5 digital prints. www.janneart.net
Join Akin Sunrise artist June Clark, along with Ming Smith and Suzy Lake this evening at 7pm the Art Gallery of Ontario for a conversation about photography, career, and critical reception for the CONTACT Photography Festival. This is a free event.
About June Clark June Clark has earned a national and international reputation for her photo-based image works, installations and interventions. Clark’s works explore the intersection of family history, recollection and identity. Clark grew up in Harlem, a major centre of Black cultural and artistic excellence. In 1968 she moved to Toronto, where she continues to live and create art. She has exhibited widely throughout Canada and abroad, including exhibitions in Ecuador, Austria, Paris and New York. She has taught studio and academic visual arts courses at York University, the University of Guelph, and the Ontario College of Art and Design. Clark has an MFA in visual arts from York University. www.juneclark.ca
Opportunist (40” x 30”) Scanning electron micrograph of fungal spores
Beneath Us is a photographic and sonic installation, produced by the collaboration of Radha Chaddah and Dan Bédard. The subject matter is the hidden realms that exist at a scale invisible to us. Chaddah removed tiny specs of wax from the bottom of a beehive, coated them in gold and photographed them using a scanning electron microscope that can see 180,000 times life size. Bédard created the sonic score by morphing traditional instrument sounds with bee sounds and then filtering this blend through Chaddah’s photographs using software that brings out hidden resonances. Beneath Us is titled to reflect the difference between the perception and reality of our place in nature. Humans largely behave as though all other creatures are beneath us in a hierarchy of life. In reality, humans rely on bees for our survival. Bees are a supportive foundation beneath us. This work symbolizes the invisibility of non-human narratives, the essential interrelatedness and interdependency of living things, and the beauty and fragility of these relationships.
Beneath Us
Where: Only One Gallery, 5 Brock Avenue, Toronto, ON
When: May 16th-29th
Opening Reception: May 16th, 7-11PM
CONTACT 2019 showcases an outstanding selection of Canadian and international lens-based artists. The Festival’s Core Exhibitions are comprised of collaborations with major museums, galleries, and artist-run centres as well as site-specific public art projects. These are cultivated through partnerships and commissions, and frame the cultural, social, and political events of our times. The Featured and Open Call Exhibitions present a range of works by local and international artists at leading galleries and alternative spaces across the city. The Festival also includes a wide range of Programs including a book fair, a symposium, lectures, talks, panels, and workshops. CONTACT exhibitions and programs are free and open to the public, with some exceptions at major museums.
Renowned American artist Carrie Mae Weems will headline the 23rd edition of the citywide event spanning the month of May. As Weems’ first solo presentation in Canada, her exhibition in five parts will include an array of pivotal, celebrated works, some in unique new iterations. Her work will be shown at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, at CONTACT Gallery, and at three outdoor sites in Toronto’s Entertainment District, including the exterior of the TIFF Bell Lightbox. Weems will also give a public lecture discussing her practice.
Festival Launch Party Ryerson Image Centre 33 Gould St Wednesday May 1, 7-11pm Free and open to the public
On view: Scotiabank Photography Award: Moyra Davey Meryl McMaster, As Immense as the Sky Adrian Raymer, Rejects Maximum Exposure 24
Throughout Toronto every May, CONTACT presents lens-based works by acclaimed and emerging artists, documentary photographers, and photojournalists from Canada and around the world. The core programming of Primary Exhibitions (co-presentations with major museums, galleries, and artist-run centres), and Public Installations (site-specific public art projects), are a central focus of the Festival. These are cultivated through partnerships, commissions and new discoveries, framing the cultural, social, and political events of our times. The Featured and Open Exhibitions present a range of works by local and international artists at leading galleries and alternative spaces across the city. The Festival also includes a wide range of Events including the CONTACT Photobook Fair, a symposium, lectures, talks, panels, and workshops.
'Habitat' presents new work by artist Luis Jacob, who is known for his practice that destabilizes conventions of looking to highlight the socio-political dimensions of the visual world. Anchoring the exhibition is Album XIV, constructed of hundreds of images cut from books and magazines and displayed as an extended sequence without identifying captions or context. The work features images of city planning, abstract art, and references to forms of spectatorship, including the work of various Toronto artists and particular moments in the city’s development.
More than a chronicle of Toronto’s visual history, Habitat queries the relationship of the city’s culture to its economic life and its forms of self-identity (both projected and submerged). The exhibition continues Jacob’s role as a renegade semiotician—an artist whose reordering of images exerts conscious and unconscious pressure on the ways that people assign, experience, and reconfigure meaning.
What the show is about: Two artists finding meaning in natural materials and how they can inform the way we live. Mazzarello has turned to plant life and landscapes to study connections between this world and the human form in her series THE DREAMING PLANT. Arron’s WEAVE ME pieces are woven studies, each one exposing raw edges and hidden meanings through imagery and natural fibres.
Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival 2017 is the largest photography event in the world with over 1500 artists in 200 exhibitions and happenings throughout the month in the Greater Toronto Area.
Nathaniel Brunt is the recipient of the 2016 Portfolio Reviews Exhibition Award. He will discuss his work in the Kashmir Valley, and his current exhibition #shaheed.
#shaheed explores the evolution of photojournalism and its current role in documenting conflict, while seeking to visually unpack the complex war in the Kashmir Valley. The exhibition is comprised of black-and-white photographs taken in the region by Canadian photographer Nathaniel Brunt, and nearly two hundred colour images and videos that Brunt was given by Kashmiri families and that he collected online from social media. Brunt exhibits these varied forms of photography and video together, thereby expanding his role from photographer to collector and archivist. The adjacency of the images gives viewers the opportunity to see multiple subjectivities at play and to discover more nuanced connections, while their placement speaks to the enormous quantity of images created and shared online daily. By including photographs created by non-professionals who are actively and intimately involved in the Valley's conflict, Brunt steps away from the hierarchical distribution of photojournalism, presenting a much more progressive and horizontal manner of contextualization and visual storytelling.
Renowned Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky and the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival are accepting submissions for the 2017 Burtynsky Grant - a $5,000 annual grant to support a Canadian artist in the creation of a photobook. Burtynsky generously donated his 2016 Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts of $25,000 to create the grant and foster the careers of Canadian artists.
This grant is intended to support artists who are in the advanced stages of developing a photobook. The jury is looking for submissions from those that have created a book dummy, are currently seeking funding to work with a publisher or to self-publish, and who have had little to no prior experience publishing a photobook. The winner will be announced at the end of May 2017.
International curators, directors, publishers, and photo editors are brought together during CONTACT to review work by emerging artists, with a focus on documentary, photojournalism, narrative or photo-based art practices. Those with projects at an advanced stage of development who are seeking opportunities for publishing and exhibiting nationally or internationally, as well as looking for guidance on conceptual approaches or career development advice are encouraged to participate.
Registration closes April 24, 2017. Please note that due to limited space, all submissions will go through a selection process to ensure that a high caliber of work is presented in this program.
Feeling inspired after an amazing weekend at Art Toronto? The SNAP! 2017 Contemporary Photography Competition closes THIS FRIDAY!
A juried competition for all photographers, there are cash prizes for top entries. Selected images will feature in the SNAP! silent auction, part of Toronto's most exciting gala celebrating contemporary art photography.
A total of 7 prizes will be awarded as follows: • $1,000 grand prize, the Jim P. Shea Award for Best Overall Submission • Six $500 Awards of Merit
The Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival invites photographic artists to submit proposals for the 2017 Featured Exhibition programme.
The Featured Exhibitions category showcases high-calibre exhibitions and recognizes outstanding photo-based projects. These exhibitions are highlighted prominently in the Festival's programming and communications, including the CONTACT magazine, website, and newsletter. Featured Exhibitions benefit from promotion and coverage through CONTACT's extensive public relations initiatives and draw significant attention to the artists and venues involved.
CONTACT welcomes submissions from emerging, mid-career, and established Canadian and international artists and curators. The call is open to proposals for solo or group exhibitions on any subject matter, and to all photo-based practices. To be eligible, shows must take place for a minimum of two weeks during the month of May 2017, and must have a confirmed exhibition space.
Please submit the following by email as a zipped folder (no larger than 8MB) or by file hosting service (eg. WeTransfer or Dropbox) to submissions@scotiabankcontactphoto.com.
10 images representing the specific project you wish to present. Image files must be in jpeg format and no larger than 1024 pixels wide.
An image list indicating artist name, title, medium, dimensions in inches, and year for each image.
One-page exhibition summary outlining your concept and content. Please include exhibition title, dates, name of exhibiting artist(s), and gallery/venue name.
A curriculum vitae or biography of the artist(s).
Contact information including name, address, telephone, and email for the main exhibition contact person. Please note you must designate one person as the primary point of contact.
A registration fee applies: Early Registration - available until November 7, 2016. $275 + HST
Incomplete submissions will not be accepted or reviewed
Priority is given to works that have not yet been exhibited in Toronto
Priority is given to those presenting in professional spaces
The exhibition space must hold public viewing hours
Decision letters with be sent out in mid-December 2016
The Gattuso Prize Featured Exhibitions are eligible for The Gattuso Prize, a $5,000 award that acknowledges an outstanding exhibition in the Festival. Selected by a jury, the award decision is based on the calibre and concept of the work, the curatorial vision, and the overall impact and presentation of the exhibition.
About CONTACT The Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival is the largest photography event in the world, and a premiere cultural experience in Canada, with over 1500 artists in 200 exhibitions and happenings throughout the month in the Greater Toronto Area. Founded in 1997, CONTACT is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to celebrating and fostering the art and profession of photography. In 2017, CONTACT’s core programming will celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary.
Keeping in theme with Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival’s month of photography, MOCCA will lead a photographic scavenger hunt in the museum and surrounding neighbourhood.
Participants will be supplied with disposable film cameras and upon completing the workshop, MOCCA will mail out the printed photos.
CONTACT is accepting submissions from artists and photographers with well-developed projects to participate in the 2015 Portfolio Reviews.
International experts in the field of photography are brought together for two days during CONTACT to review the work by those with a focus mainly on narrative, photo-based art practices, documentary, and photojournalism. This year CONTACT will present a series of related events, such as lectures, workshops and a performance, that focus on the photobook and the publishing industry.
This is an important program for artists and photographers with projects at advanced stages of development who are seeking opportunities for publishing and exhibiting--as well as for those looking for guidance on conceptual approaches or career development advice.
2015 Reviewers include: Bruno Ceschel, Self Publish, Be Happy, London; Joanne Junga Yang, Y&G Art, Seoul; Sophie Hackett, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Olivier Laurent, TIME LightBox, New York; Dewi Lewis, Dewi Lewis Publishing, London; Moritz Neumüller, PhotoIreland, Dublin; Susana Reisman & Claire Sykes, Circuit Gallery, Toronto; Bonnie Rubenstein, Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, Toronto; Maarten Schilt, Schilt Publishing & Schilt Publishing Gallery, Amsterdam; Hannamari Shakya, Raw View Magazine, Helsinki; Jonathan Shaughnessy, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Supported by Ontario Arts Council and Vistek. This program was created to support and advance the careers of talented artists and photographers.
Community News:
Ryerson Image Centre Symposium
Photography Historians: A New Generation? highlights the most current research in the history of photography, bringing emerging scholars from universities worldwide to speak about their areas of study, their methods and their findings. This rising group of young photo-historians will engage in dialogue with prominent academics, revealing how contemporary historical inquiry sits within--and departs from--established traditions. The Symposium is organized by the Ryerson Image Centre with support from Ryerson University's School of Image Arts.
The Symposium is free to attend, and takes place March 26-28 at Ryerson University. For more information, visit the Ryerson website.
Film Screening
CONTACT is pleased to co-present a screening of the film "The Salt of the Earth" at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. This film follows the photographer Sebastião Salgado across continents as he builds a new masterwork on climate change, one breath-taking image at a time. Salgado's eye as an artist is second to none in the world of photojournalism.
Our friends at Hot Docs are seeking volunteers for the upcoming festival, and are also hosting an information session on volunteering in Toronto's cultural sector on March 14. Volunteers have the opportunity to meet and become part of a growing network of filmmakers, students and film lovers and to develop their skills and gain experience through North America's largest documentary film festival. For more information, visit the Hot Docs website.
CONTACT fosters and celebrates the art and profession of photography with an annual festival in May and year-round programming in the CONTACT Gallery.
CONTACT, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1997 and granted charitable status in 2011, is generously supported by Scotiabank, Nikon Canada, Pattison Outdoor Advertising, La Fondation Emmanuelle Gattuso, Vistek, Torys LLP, Ernst & Young LLP, Toronto Image Works, Kronenbourg, The Gilder, Stratus Vineyards, Transcontinental PLM, 3M Canada, Four By Eight Signs, Beyond Digital Imaging, Hotel Le Germain, The Gladstone Hotel, The Globe and Mail, NOW Magazine, and BlogTO.
CONTACT gratefully acknowledges the support of Ontario Trillium Foundation, Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, Celebrate Ontario, Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport, Ontario Arts Council, The Government of Ontario, Partners in Art, Street Art Toronto, Canada Council for the Arts, the Hal Jackman Foundation, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Goethe-Institut, the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council, and all of our funders, donors, and programming partners.
Call for Submissions: CONTACT 918: The Dark Room 4.0
A crowd-sourced, group exhibition celebrating alternative process and analog photography in the digital age.
Randy Grskovic, Demi-Verite A, 2014
Submission Deadline:Friday March 13, 2015, 5 pm EST Submission form and requirements available at:www.918bathurst.com
918 Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts Media and Education is seeking submissions for our fourth annual The Dark Room 4.0. This exhibition celebrates analogue and alternative process photography, and the intriguing work these methods produce.
Photographers using analogue and alternatives to digital photographic processes are invited to submit their work. This includes film negatives, pinhole, collodion/wet plate, silver gelatin, platinum prints, camera obscura, lomography, photograms, or other experimental uses of the wet/dark room.
The exhibition consists of two distinct components: On April 23, all accepted submissions will be displayed at Gallery 918 in a public showcase and celebration. During this event, both the public and our invited jury will select the photographs to be shown during our official two-week exhibition from May 5 – 29. Artists selected for this exhibition will be eligible for awards provided by our sponsors and partners, including Rizzoli Books.
Call for Artist Submissions Deadline:Friday March 13, 2015 by 5 pm EST
Public Preview Celebration and Voting:Thursday April 23, 12 pm – 11 pm
Exhibition Dates:Tuesday, May 5 – Friday, May 29
Closing Reception and Awards:Friday, May 29
Location: Gallery 918 at 918 Bathurst, Toronto, 416-538-0868
The Dark Room 3.0 is a group exhibition celebrating analog and alternative process photography, bringing together emerging and established artists who are preserving the knowledge and practices of classic photography and testing the boundaries of this art form.
Processes under consideration will include 35 mm photography or other film negatives, pinhole, wet plate, silver gelatin, platinum prints, lomography, photogram, and others.
An initial preview reception on April 24, 2014 will allow members of the public and an invited jury to vote and select the works to be shown during the official two-week exhibition from May 2-15. Artists selected for the two-week exhibition will be eligible for cash awards, prizes and a solo gallery show generously provided by our sponsors and partners, and awarded at a closing reception on May 15.
Key Dates:
Call for Artist Submissions Deadline: Friday March 28, 2014
Public Preview Celebration & Voting: Thurs April 24, 12pm-11pm
