The CONTACT Photography Festival celebrates 20 years in 2016, with exhibits and events big and small across Toronto. This annual photography festival is open to the public now through early June. The exhibits are not exclusive to museums and galleries, they also take place in restaurants, stores and other public spaces. There are many chances to experience the festival in the Ossington and Dundas area.
LE Gallery on Dundas West is hosting an exhibition that has already been recommended by Toronto press. We Soon Be Nigh! explores apocalyptic prophesies from the recent past, and is running at the gallery May 6-28.
HuntClub Gallery, also on Dundas West, is participating with an open exhibit about transgender and transsexual sex workers in Buenos Aires titled Hotel Gondolin running May 5-31.
Two local restaurants are also contributing their space for photography exhibits this May. Julie’s Cuban on Dovercourt, fittingly, features photos of Havana street scenes for the show Habana Siempre. Boehmer Restaurant at 93 Ossington will host an exhibit of photographs of India from photographer Misha Masek.
The local Shaw Street location of Artscape Youngplace will showcase several CONTACT shows. You can spend at least a couple of hours touring all the photography exhibits on site, including one at Typology Projects called On the Surface, and Over A Distance Between One and Many at Koffler Gallery. There are youth photography projects at Artscape including Our Safe Spaces and Presence from Etobicoke School of the Arts Grade 12 students. Two more exhibits at 180 Shaw Street are women’s collective SOFIA’s Bad Behavior and, happening later in May, Mindset.
Ellephant, a new gallery at the corner of Ossington and Queen, underneath the Gravity Pope store, will have an opening next Thursday, May 5 and an artist talk for the exhibit Biophilia Reimagined.
The festival kicks off tonight with an event at the AGO and runs across the city throughout May.
