Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival 2014 / Festival Launch
May 2, 2014, 7 – 10 p.m.
Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art
Photographic works will be on display at 175 venues all around the city of Toronto throughout the month of May. Within Contact’s eighteen-year history, the festival has grown to become the largest photographic festival in the world. Contact brings together both international and Toronto based photographers with the community in both public exhibitions and installations.
David Liss, Artistic Director & Curator of Mocca in his opening remarks said that the main exhibition in Mocca, titled, Material Self: Performing the Other Within is reflecting Mocca’s mission statement: ” … to exhibit, research, collect, and promote innovative art by Canadian and international artists whose works engage and address challenging issues and themes relevant to our times”
Tomoko Sawada’s vitrin
Works by Namsa Leuba
Artist David Favrod in front of Vent divin, 2013. Favrod came here from Spain to promote his photographic installation, Gaijin.
Works by Mary Sibande
Bonnie Rubenstein, Artistic Director of Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival and curator of the exhibition, discussed the thematic program of “identity” and how the exhibition itself explores the idea of shifting identities, performative gestures, and the uses of clothing and “costume” in creating these identities/roles. The exhibition collapses cultural boundaries, exploring role playing, as well as social, cultural, historical, sexual and political issues (intersectionality of gender, race and sexuality). In overall, the exhibitions demonstrates photography’s ability or “power” to engage and enrich our own sense of self.
Bonnie Rubenstein, Artistic Director of Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival
In Character: Self-Portrait of the Artist as Another co-curator Jonathan Shaughnessy pinpointed how Material Self revolves around the work of Rodney Graham who is renowned for his exploration of roles, character, and constructed (enacted) identity in his self portraits.
Artist Meryl McMaster
Works by Charles Fréger
Artist Dominique Rey
Rodney Graham , The Gifted Amateur, Nov. 10th, 1962, 2007, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Courtesy of the artist and Lisson Gallery.
The role of the community, both as participants and viewers in Contact, has been integral to the success of the festival. Darcy Killeen, the festivals executive director believes that the “function of art is to inspire the community.” Contact has enabled a closer relationship between photographers and the community, bringing to light ideas about the world and the city in which we inhabit. He also expressed his hope that the festival can become an international tourist attraction.
Darcy Killeen, Executive Director of Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival
The launch drew a mass of visitors to the MOCCA of both photographers and admirers of photography. The large gallery spaces as well as the courtyard were filled with guest discussing the works on display and enjoying a drink into the night.
Visitors with Hendrik Kernstens’ work
Visitors with Meryl McMaster’s works
Text: Melina Rymberg
Photo: Elena Iourtaeva