the first truly revolutionary means of reproduction, photography... Walter Benjamin

As a rapidly changing medium, photography has developed alongside the significant social, political and cultural events concurrent with the rise of the age of technology. Each significant innovation in photography’s evolution has radically altered the creation and consumption of images, irrevocably changing the history of visual representation.

In response to last year’s festival, the Globe and Mail called photography “an art form undergoing a revolution.” While we are definitely in the midst of conceptual and technological advancement, photography has been revolutionary since its invention, and it still is. CONTACT 2009 looks back to the foundations of photography to explore the current innovations that are transforming the role and function of the medium. From reportage to abstraction, documented fact to constructed fiction, the festival investigates photography’s force as a tool for social and political change and the evolving manifestations of photographic imagery that persistently influence the way we see the world today.

Our primary exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA), Still Revolution: Suspended in Time, presents eight Canadian and international artists whose photographs mirror a complex history marked by pervasive change.

Barbara Astman (Canada) Walead Beshty (USA) Mat Collishaw (UK) Stan Douglas (Canada) Idris Khan (UK) Trevor Paglen (USA) Martha Rosler (USA) Mikhael Subotzky (South Africa)

For details on this exhibition at MOCCA Click Here

Embedding photography into social networks of the city, CONTACT reinforces the image revolution and the engagement between photography and radical change. Site-specific public installations infiltrate Toronto, from the alleys of the Queen West neighborhood to the moving sidewalks at Pearson airport's Terminal 1. Photography’s revolutionary means of reproduction is explored at feature exhibitions that encompass the history of the medium, from the Campbell House Museum, the oldest remaining brick home in the city, to the newly transformed Art Gallery of Ontario. CONTACT present over 1,000 artists in the festival this year and a riot of photographic imagery throughout Toronto in May.

Visit the Public Installations, Feature Exhibitions and Open Exhibitions sections of the website for more details.