Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival announced highlights of the 27th edition of the annual citywide event spanning the month of May 2023.
CONTACT Gallery | 80 Spadina Ave, Ste 205
May 2 – June 17
Brookfield Place | 181 Bay St
May 1 – 31
Curated by Tara Smith
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.
Among these are CONTACT’s critically acclaimed Outdoor Installations—a central component of the Festival’s Core Program. Inaugurated in 2003 with four projects, this program of public artwork celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2023, with a number of guest curators participating in activating 19 sites throughout the city.
The preliminary list of artists, documentary photographers, and photojournalists featured across the Core Program of gallery exhibitions and outdoor installations includes:
Bringing together the work of these artists from all over the world in presentations that highlight the seminal creative practices and issues of our time, the curators featured in the 2023 Festival further represent a multitude of voices, strategically expanding dialogue in new directions. Their critical perspectives help amplify the power of photography within public discourse. Participating 2023 curators include:
A number of Core Exhibitions and Outdoor Installations present photo/lens-based works by artists variously exploring Indigenous futures, decolonial practices, self-determination, family, the complexities of identity, human relationships to the land, climate concerns, time scales, and memory, among other critical subjects.
Additional Core presentations feature Canadian and International artists also working in photography and mixed media to elicit, complicate, and expand conceptions of cultural identities and diaspora, activating historical archives and addressing their problematic gaps by creating new ones, and by creating new futures through visionary world building.
“We look forward to working with these exceptional artists and curators, many of whom will create site-specific projects as part of our Core Program. 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. Please check our website for further updates and mark your calendars for another dynamic photo-centric month in Toronto,” says CONTACT Executive Director Tara Smith.