Most live events have been postponed or adapted to virtual offerings in 2021.
Toronto follows public health measures enacted by the Ontario government to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Check the event website for the most up-to-date information. The content below is from past years of this event.
Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival
May 2020 (dates to be announced) | Throughout Toronto | Official website
A month-long festival of photography with over 1,000 local, national and international artists at more than 200 venues across Toronto each May.
Felicity Hammond, Post Production (Detail), 2018
As the largest photography festival in the world, CONTACT is a premiere cultural event with a broad range of international programming. Every May in Toronto participants exhibit in a variety of venues, from major public museums to private galleries and many alternative spaces such as billboards and the facades of significant cultural buildings.
The 2018 festival opening night is Friday April 27, 2018 from 7-11 p.m. at the Ryerson Image Centre. The event is free to attend.
Top Public Installations in 2018
The Calatrava-designed atrium at Brookfield Place is one of the most stunning settings and this year, Marleen Sleeuwits’s “Not The Actual Site” takes over the area with her depictions of “non spaces” such as vacant zones in airports, unoccupied corridors of hotels and empty rooms in office buildings.
Chinese photographer, Wang Yishu, captures the familiar yet absurd within ordinary scenes. See four of his works in the Osgoode subway station.
Emeka Ogboh’s billboard on The Power Plant’s south façade, WER HAT ANGST VOR SCHWARZ, is one of a series inspired by the food tastes and experiences of Africans living in Europe, especially Germany and is presented in conjunction with his solo exhibition inside the gallery, on view until May 13, 2018.
A Forest of Canoes is a site-specific installation at The Bentway in which Vancouver-based artist Dana Claxton (Lakota Sioux) considers the iconic role and symbolism of the canoe in Canadian, Metis and Indigenous histories with images depicting a range of canoe types.
