contact photography festival

You can soon get up close with the massive transformation of the Port Lands in Toronto

You'll soon be able to get an up-close look at the massive development of the Port Lands in Toronto.

Back for its 28th year, the Contact Photography Festival is giving art fans in the city their fill of photography and video-based media with hundreds of exhibitions from established and emerging artists scattered all across the city for an entire month.

The citywide event kicks off on May 1 with exhibitions going up at locations across the city — everywhere from museums to subway stations, alongside public events like talks and workshops.

The festival is made up of 44 public programs, 36 Core Exhibitions curated by Contact, and 103 Open Call Exhibitions curated by members and businesses in the community.

The public programs include talks, workshops and portfolio reviews which will be taking place across the city for the duration of the festival, including Vid Ingelevics and Ryan Walker's Port Lands Bridges: A Recent Visual History.

Bridges will give you an unprecedented first-hand look into the recent transformation of the Port Lands in an excerpted version of Ingelevics' and Walkers' documentary How to Build a River, hosted at the City of Toronto Archives.

The Core Exhibitions and Public Art Installations will feature works displayed at museums, galleries and public spaces centring around themes of power, liberation, ceremony and revolution and more, all through the lens of visual media.

Some places you can expect to see Contact popping up this May include Yonge-Dundas Square, the Aga Khan Museum, Davisville Subway Station, 918 Bathurst, Butter & Blue and many more.

While the festival officially runs from May 1 to May 31, some exhibitions will be opening before and/or extending beyond the month of the festival, so check out the full festival calendar to find out what's happening and when.

Lead photo by

Vid Ingelevics and Ryan Walker via Contact Photo


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