Scotiabank Photography Award: Dawit L. Petros

May 6–August 1, 2026
Main Gallery
Curator: Gaëlle Morel

This survey exhibition celebrates the career of Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist Dawit L. Petros, winner of the 2025 Scotiabank Photography Award. Spanning over 20 years, this presentation of more than 60 photographs and serigraphs traces a long-standing inquiry into the legacy of colonial history across Africa, Europe, and North America. Rooted in rigorous scholarly research and extensive travel, Petros's practice is defined by his creative use of archival photographs, colour, and abstraction. The artist challenges photography’s documentary function while investigating migration, belonging, displacement, and the lingering effects of colonial memory.

Events

Spring/Summer Opening Reception
May 6, 2026
6–8 pm
Eventbrite registration required
Register now >

Artist Talk: Dawit L. Petros
May 7, 2026
7–8:30 pm
IMA-307
Enter via the Image Centre, 33 Gould Street
Eventbrite registration required
Get your ticket >

Special Exhibition Tour
May 27, 2026
6–7 pm
Led by Gaëlle Morel & Helen Tewolde

Special Exhibition Tour
July 15, 2026
6-7 pm
Led by Gaëlle Morel

Fig.

Dawit L. Petros, Colourscape, Coordinate #5, (Dakar, Senegal), 2012, pigment print. Courtesy of the artist and Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal

Fig.

Dawit L. Petros, Spectral Fragment, VI (Enchanted Island), 2025, pigment print, CNC etching on smoked gray plexiglass. Courtesy of the artist and Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal

Fig.

Dawit L. Petros, Between Departures, Returns and Excesses of Image, Part III, 2021, serigraph on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal

Fig.

Dawit L. Petros, Demarcation (Painting Sea on Land), Asmara Road, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2011, pigment prints. Collection of Elizabeth Harney and Paul Martin. Courtesy of the artist and Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal

Fig.

Dawit L. Petros, Matthios, 2005, pigment print. Courtesy of the artist and Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal

Artist Bio

Dawit L. Petros

Dawit L. Petros (Eritrean/Canadian, b. 1972) is a visual artist, researcher, and educator. He holds an MFA in visual art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University, Boston. Recent exhibition venues include Remai Modern and the University of Saskatchewan’s College Art Galleries, Saskatoon (2025); the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago (2024); Oslo Kunstforening, Norway (2020); the 13th Biennial of Havana, Matanzas, Cuba (2019); and Addis Foto Fest, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (2018).

Petros has been awarded an Independent Study Fellowship at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2012) and an artist residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2008), both in New York City. A winner of the Duke and Duchess of York Prize from the Canada Council of the Arts (2021), he is an associate professor of studio art at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. Petros is represented by Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal, and Tiwani Contemporary, London, UK.

Exhibition Catalogue

Dawit L. Petros

This book surveys the richly layered œuvre of Dawit L. Petros, tracing over two decades of photography and multimedia works that fuse minimalism with postcolonial inquiry. Petros draws on archives, travelogues and oral traditions to connect disparate geographies—particularly the Horn of Africa, Italy and Canada—revealing entangled histories of colonialism, migration and labor. His practice embraces absence and fragmentation: using grids, monochromes and geometric forms he echoes the incomplete nature of historical records while foregrounding suppressed narratives. Influenced by both Western minimalism and global modernisms, Petros retools abstraction to carry the cadences of diasporic memory and vernacular culture. Through photography, installation, film and performance, he interrogates borders, mobility and the aesthetics of empire. This book highlights Petros’ ongoing commitment to storytelling as a fluid, migratory process—one that reimagines modernity through unexpected encounters, resonances and the enduring possibilities of movement.

Co-published by Steidl and Scotiabank Photography Award, Toronto

236 pages, 300 images
ISBN 978-3-96999-550-1
Edition 05/2026

BUY IN THE IMC ONLINE SHOP