Tuesday May 13, starting at 6pm in Dovercourt Village
995 Dupont St, Toronto, ON M6H 1Z5
(Depending on weather conditions)
A two-part walk
Come do the full walk of about two hours, or simply walk a segment at your own pace.
Follow our live location along the walk (available Tuesday from 6:00 PM).
Download the map on your mobile device and let yourself be guided. A simple click on the locations will open the doors to the works of art to discover…
On the occasion of the CONTACT Photography Festival, a new flânerie (a stroll) offers the chance to rediscover Toronto’s public space through photographic installations displayed on billboards. These billboards, an omnipresent media often relegated to the background of our attention, become, for the time being, an intervention of surfaces appropriated by artists.
Before the omnipresence of screens, the billboard imposed its images on a large scale on the urban landscape. True emblems of visual capitalism, they continue, today more discreetly, to shape our collective unconscious. For several years, the CONTACT festival has been reinvesting these iconic structures by entrusting artists with the task of exhibiting works that challenge the usual commercial codes.
As we wander through the exhibition, the works we encounter raise a common question: how can we resist the erasure of personal and collective narratives in public spaces? Is this fight against advertising in vain? We will discuss these proposals which reaffirm the power of images to disturb and inscribe new narratives in urban space.
The walk will conclude with a shared convivial moment, a natural extension of the discussions initiated throughout the route. Together, in the simple act of strolling, of looking differently, another understanding of Toronto emerges – more attentive, more critical, more profound to the stories revealed by art in our streets.
The programme: an itinerary in two parts
The trajectory of the walk is divided in two parts, permitting us to explore two emblematic neighbourhoods where the installations of the CONTACT photograpy festival insert themselves in the urban fabric:
- Part one: approx. 1 km in Wallace Emerson / Davenport Village
Rendezvous 6PM at Dovercourt Rd and Dupont St, Toronto, ON M6H, Canada
(then, the 47A bus, Lansdowne Ave – approx. 15 min to the part 2) - Part 2: approx. 3 km along West Queen West
The walk will conclude with a drink at Pennies (127 Strachan Avenue), to continue the discussion in a relaxed atmosphere. Disclaimer: we will not be able to observe all the billboards during this walk, however they are indicated on the map.
Curated works:
Billboards on Dupont
Buck Ellison‘s hyper-aesthetic still lifes are not what they seem: beneath their apparent elegance, they reveal how fabrics and everyday objects participate in the construction of narratives of power, wealth, and social hierarchies. Curated by Emmy Lee Wall, this series subverts the codes of commercial photography to better question aesthetics as a tool of domination, even in public spaces.
Billboards on Lansdowne
In Erased Slogans and Birds of Prey, Filipino artist Kiri Dalena revisits archives from contexts of dictatorship and colonization to reactivate narratives of resistance and challenge imposed representations. Curated by Su-Ying Lee, this double installation presented at the Junction questions collective memory, censorship and the way in which images can serve – or counter – the logic of power.
Billboard on Dundas West
By blending poetry, archives and moving images, artist and filmmaker Suneil Sanzgiri questions dominant narratives linked to memory, diaspora and colonial legacies. Curated by Aamna Muzaffar, her work in public space is structured around verses by the poet Agha Shahid Ali, inscribed on two mirror panels, to evoke the tensions between intimate memory and official history.
Billboards at College St and Clinton St
In Ghar, photographer Anu Kumar explores her quest for cultural identity after returning to India as an adult, documenting her family’s intimate life in Kavi Nagar over five years. Curated by Elias Redstone, this series of sensitive portraits – including two touching images of her grandmother on display in Toronto – evokes memory, migration and the deep connections that shape our idea of “home.”
Billboard on Strachan Ave
Drawing on old photographs from the 19th and early 20th centuries, American artist Alanna Fields reveals, in her series Unveiling, gestures and gazes often overlooked in dominant narratives. Curated by Luther Konadu, this work makes marginalized Black and queer presences visible, affirming their pride and intimacy through a resolutely political art of reappearance.
Billboard at Queen St W and Augusta Ave
Canadian artist Jordan King presents a series of Polaroids taken between 1999 and 2004 and reactivated in 2020 in homage to International Chrysis, a trans figure from the 70s and 80s with whom she formerly shared a home in New York. Curated by Sameen Mahboubi, this work questions queer memory, photographic intimacy and the way in which personal archives can invest public space.
