CONTACT is an annual festival of photography in Toronto, during the month of May, with over 1000 local, national and international artists exhibiting at more than 200 venues.
CONTACT is the largest photography event in the world, and a premiere cultural event in Canada.
‘Stimulated by the renewed global interest in street photography, this year’s festival explores the theme “Public” in a series of exhibitions, site-specific installations, and events across the city.
Drawing attention to social and political issues that are framed by photographic images, the works presented challenge the distinctions between our private lives and the public sphere.
CONTACT 2012 highlights how photography shapes collective experience and makes things public.”
Here are some FREE Events of Contact 2012:
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Main Space
Public: Collective Identity | Occupied Spaces
Apr 27, 2012 – Jun 03, 2012
- April 28 to June 3: Public: Collective Identity | Occupied Spaces
Opening Reception April 28, 6-9 pm
Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art: Main Space
952 Queen St W
Toronto M6J 1G8- Curated by Matthew Brower, David Liss, Bonnie Rubenstein
- Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, the University of Toronto Art Centre and the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival
- Event Artist Talk: Philippe Chancel, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art: Main Space April 28, 12:00 pm
- Event Artist Talk: Bill Sullivan, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art: Main Space April 28, 2:00 pm
- Public Installations: photographic images presented as site-specific installations in urban settings throughout Toronto and across Canada.
- Most of them are FREE to the public.
- Magnum Workshop Toronto at CONTACT 2012
- In the fifth year of Magnum Workshop Toronto at Contact 2012, selected students will participate in a 5-day shooting workshop with their choice of one of three Magnum Photographers: Constantine Manos, Mark Power and Larry Towell, each of whose personal style and focus make this an intimate experience with photography.
- Participants will produce individual projects over the course of five days (May 7 – 11) focusing on story formation, visual literacy, and developing personal vision, intensive masterclasses form the center of the Magnum Workshop Toronto.
- The workshop culminates in a student slideshow and closing party on Saturday, 12 May:
Screening & Wrap Party Sat May 12, 7 – 9PM
918 Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts, Media & Education
918 Bathurst Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada- Join us for an opportunity to view the visual stories created by photographers participating in the workshop.
- Presented by Kronenbourg.
- Free and open to the public.
- For more information, please contact song@magnumphotos.com
www.magnumphotos.com
- Primary Exhibitions: highlighting the festival theme, these exhibitions explore social and political issues that shape our experience of publicness.
- Some of them are FREE to the public.
- Featured Exhibitions: galleries across the city present 32 selected exhibitions of artists’ works from around the world.
- Some of them are FREE to the public.
- Open Exhibitions: in response to an open call to participate in the festival, more than 1,000 artists exhibit their work at over 130 venues
- There are FREE exhibitions.
- Berenice Abbott: Photographs – Conference
Ryerson University, Rogers Communication Centre,
80 Gould Street, Eaton Theatre, RCC-204 (Second Floor)
Saturday, May 26, 2012 1:00-4:30pm
Main Phone Number: 416.979.5000
FREE- To accompany the exhibition Berenice Abbott: Photographs, the Ryerson Image Centre and Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival are pleased to present a one-day conference addressing the work of Berenice Abbott.
- This conference will be open to the public and free to attend.
1:00pm Introductions
Doina Popescu, Director of the Ryerson Image Centre,
Marta Gili, Director of the Jeu de Paume (Paris),
Bonnie Rubenstein, Artistic Director, Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.1:30pm Keynote Address
Ron Kurtz, Owner of Commerce Graphics
A graduate of MIT, Kurtz had a long career in the high tech materials industry as owner of Kulite Tungsten Corp. In 1961, a lifelong interest in photography led him to begin collecting fine art photographs. In 1985, he acquired the Berenice Abbott archive. After donating a large portion of the archive to various museums and institutions, he established Commerce Graphics to administer the commercial aspects of Abbott’s work. Since the sale of Kulite in 1997, Kurtz is involved full time with Commerce Graphics.2:45pm Panel Discussion
Gaëlle Morel, Sarah Miller, Terri Weissman,
Moderator: Sophie Hackett- Gaëlle Morel is Curator at the Ryerson Image Centre. She received her PhD in the history of contemporary art from Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, and she is a member of the editorial committee of the bilingual refereed journal Études photographiques. Morel was the guest curator of the Mois de la Photo in Montreal in 2009 and she has written essays that have appeared in a number of books and catalogues.
- Sarah Miller is the Terra Foundation Postdoctoral Scholar in American Art at the University of Chicago. She is writing a book on the diverse inventions and iterations of the concept “documentary” across theories, practices, and institutions of photography during the American 1930s. Her work has been supported by the Whiting Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, Center for Creative Photography, Council on Library and Information Resources, and University of Chicago.
- Terri Weissman is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her book, The Realisms of Berenice Abbott: Documentary Photography and Political Action, was published by the University of California Press in 2011. She also co-curated (with Sharon Corwin and Jessica May) the exhibition American Modern: Abbott, Evans and Bourke-White. Her current project investigates the visual culture of protest movements; it is tentatively titled, This is What Democracy Looks Like: Freedom, Action and Revolutionary Dreams.
Moderator:
Sophie Hackett is the Assistant Curator, Photography at the Art Gallery of Ontario and adjunct faculty in Ryerson University’s Masters program in Photographic Preservation and Collections Management. Over the last decade, she has contributed to several Canadian art magazines and international journals and curated many shows independently. Recently, in her role at the Art Gallery of Ontario, she commissioned Barbara Kruger to create a new work for the front façade of the AGO, Untitled (It), for the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.
Enjoy!
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