Contact Photography Festival Welcomes Everyone: Parties Start April 29, 2011

The month of May, May 1 – 31, is Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival which is an annual festival of photography in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Contact Photography Festival has over 1000 local, national and international artists exhibiting at more than 200 venues.

Contact started 15 years ago as a non-profit organization that celebrated, and fostered the art and profession of photography, and has grown to become the largest photography event in the world, and a premiere cultural event in Canada.

Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival is about advancing knowledge, creativity and innovation in photography.

The theme of this year’s Contact is:

“Focusing on our relationship to the environment, CONTACT 2011: Figure & Ground looks at how photographic images alter perception, inform knowledge, and uncover meaning. From classical portraits of the figure in the landscape to critical views of a ground transformed by human intervention, the works in this year’s festival explore the shifting tensions between humanity and nature.”

That sounds environmentally friendly to me! Environmental/Green photography is a good, topical interest for 2011.

The highlights of this incredible Contact Photography Festival include:

• open call for exhibitions, enabling emerging artists to show their work across the city,

• concurrent with exhibitions of works by leading professionals.

• CONTACT’s curated programming–including primary and featured exhibitions, public installations and special events–is the central focus of Contact’s activities.

Special Events

Tomorrow is the Festival Launch Party and Exhibition Openings at MOCCA

You are invited to “a night of reveling to celebrate the launch of the 2011 festival and opening of the exhibitions” at:

Please click here for info on more special events (41) of the Contact Photography Festival.

Primary Exhibitions

Highlighting the festival theme, six exhibitions focus on the relationship between figure and ground.

• All six Primary Exhibitions invite you to their Opening Receptions.

• Please click on each photo to obtain the date and time of the Opening Reception as well as the address of the venue location and its venue website.

• Also, please note that only five exhibitions and their Opening receptions are FREE.

• The exhibition of Guy Tillim: Avenue Patrice Lumumba at the Design Exchange requires an admission fee.

Guy Tillim: Avenue Patrice Lumumba

Location: Design Exchange
April 20–June 14
OPENING Reception: May 1, 2:00–5:00 pm

234 Bay St
Toronto, M5K 1B2
Mon – Fri 10am – 5pm
Sat & Sun 12 – 5pm

Venue Website→

Map→

Edward Burtynsky: Oil

Public Installations

Site-specific interventions in the urban landscape, throughout Toronto and across Canada.

• All ten public installations are FREE and Wheelchair Accessible.
• Please click on each photo to obtain the viewing date , address of the installation and a map of the location.

Permanent Error
Pieter Hugo

Billboards
April 25–June 4

Spadina Ave & Front St
Toronto, M5V 2J4

Map→

Featured Exhibitions

Multifaceted explorations of the festival theme at 37 venues across the city.

• Please note that all 36 Featured Exhibitions and their Opening receptions are FREE.

• The Featured Exhibition Fall and Implosions and its Opening reception may require an admission fee and/or membership fee.
  

Fall and Implosions
Denis Darzacq, Mathieu Pernot

Alliance Française de Toronto – Galerie Pierre-Léon
May 4–June 4

OPENING Reception: May 4, 6:00–9:00 pm

24 Spadina Rd
Toronto, M5R 2S7
Mon – Thu 8am – 9:30pm
Fri – Sat 8am – 3:30pm

Website →
Email →
Map→

Long Divisions
Geoffrey Pugen

Open Exhibitions

In response to an open call to participate in CONTACT more than 1,000 artists exhibit their work at over 160 venues.

Please note that most of the exhibitions and their Opening receptions are free unless indicated otherwise on the hosts’ websites.

That is, if there is no mention of admission fees on the hosts’ websites, then admission is FREE.

For your info: AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario)  Art Rental + Sales Gallery hosting the Modus Operandi exhibition has FREE admission for both the exhibition (on week days from May 4 – June 3) and Opening reception (May 4) . Please note that this venue’s location is different from that of AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario).

Please click here for info on over 160 venues of the Open Exhibitions.

Contact Info:

Scotiabank CONTACT
Photography Festival

80 Spadina Avenue, Suite 310
Toronto, Canada M5V 2J4
T 416-539-9595 F 416-539-0829
info@scotiabankcontactphoto.com