Contact 2013 / last week

Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, 2013 is closing this week but many of the shows are still on display in various galleries

Impact Resistance by Mats Nordstrom
Opening Reception: May 30, 6 – 9 p.m.
May 30 – July 21, 2013
Julie M. Gallery
15 Mill St, Distillery Historic District

Impact Resistance features photographs and video that reflect philosophical engagement with the passage of time.

Mats Nordstrom in front of Untitled, Swimmers series

Three photographic series, 33 bathhuts and a hotdogstand, Remnants, and Swimmers, pivot on moments of emotional vulnerability and their place in human memory.

Mats Nordstrom, Untitled (Bathhut No. 16), 2007

Mats Nordstrom, Untitled (Funnel), Remnants series, 2007

Complemented by abstracted seascapes, these gentle and contemplative works prompt their audience to meditate on the formative moments that inflect the landscape of their past.

Photo: Celeste Ringrose

BMW Exhibition Prize Gala and the 17th annual Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival wrap-up party:
May 30, 2013, 6 – 8 p.m.

Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art
952 Queen Street W

Photographers, curators, art critics and organizers celebrated this past month of photography featuring over 1,500 national and international artists.

From left to right: Max Dean, Toronto-based artist, juror, Dr. Matthew Brower, curator/art historian,  Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival Executive President Darcy Killeen, winner Marlene Creates and BMW Canada Marketing Director Kevin Marcotte

The winner of this year’s $5,000 BMW Exhibition Prize for an outstanding exhibition was announced as well. A jury considered both Open and Featured exhibitions and based their decision on the caliber and concept of the work, the curatorial vision and the overall impact and presentation of the exhibition. The winner of the BMW award was Marlene Creates.

 Marlene Creates and  Dr. Matthew Brower, curator

Marlene Creates, excerpt from Sleeping Places, Newfoundland, 1982

Through Creates’ lens, geographies marked by human intervention expose multiple legacies of interaction with place, and document the artist’s own movement through the natural world she inhabits. Questioning the assumption that the “natural” is unmediated, the work depicts the ways in which language, signification, and individual memory construct our perceptions of the land and contest local and national heritage. Her work is on display at the Paul Petro Contemporary Art, located 980 Queen St W, till June 1, 2013.

Photo: Alice Tallman

Anonyma
Opening Reception: May 25, 5 – 11 p.m.
May 24 – June 10, 2013
Goodfellas Gallery
1266 Queen St

Seven photographers explore the difficulty of establishing an identity in photography; these images address the tension between the inherent obscurity that comes from being behind the camera, and the desire to express one’s identity through one’s work.

From left to right: Andrew Lee, Christine Kwan, Hitoshi Murakami, Vincent Luk, David Kim, Carmen Cheung, Nicholas Tam

Carmen Cheung, From the series: “Unveiled”, 2013, Light Jet Archival Print, 27 x 36 inches

Visitor in front of Christine Kwan, “The Watch”, Light Jet Archival Print, 52 x 36 inches

Photo: Celeste Ringrose

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