News at the IMC

The Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival opens at the Ryerson Image Centre tomorrow night, April 28, 7–11 pm

Scotiabank Photography Award: Suzy Lake
This exhibition celebrates the career of Canadian artist Suzy Lake, 2016 Scotiabank Photography Award winner, renowned internationally for her work on self-representation, female identity and the aging body. Presented by Scotiabank, organized by the Ryerson Image Centre, and a primary exhibition of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.

Max Dean: As Yet Untitled
Through an interactive experience where gallery visitors can instruct a factory automaton to save endangered family photographs, this robotic installation explores issues surrounding a viewer’s responsibility for culture and memory. A primary exhibition of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.

Souvenir: Kent Monkman, Caroline Monnet, Jeff Barnaby, Michelle Latimer
On view on the RIC’s Salah J. Bachir New Media Wall, Souvenir presents four short films addressing Indigenous identity and representation through reworked material from the National Film Board’s (NFB) archives. Produced by the NFB and a primary exhibition of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.

Spotlight Canada: Faces That Shaped a Nation
On the occasion of Canada’s Sesquicentennial, the RIC honours the country’s culture with this photographic mural highlighting key personalities who have helped establish our national identity through their endeavours and resilience. These 14 portraits, arrayed across the RIC’s west facade, celebrate a new promised gift to the collection—a cache of nearly 25,000 press photographs of Canadian personalities and events from the 20th century, preserved in The New York Times Photo Archive.

Shelley Niro: Battlefields of my Ancestors
In her ongoing photographic series, Shelley Niro (Mohawk, turtle clan) documents the historic battlefields that hold significance for her people. A two-venue public installation presented by CONTACT in partnership with Fort York Historic Site, Ryerson Image Centre and Ryerson University.

Lori Blondeau: Asiniy Iskwew
In these large-scale self-portraits, Saskatoonbased Cree/Saulteaux/Metis artist Lori Blondeau poses statuesquely on the sites of significant Plains Indigenous rock formations. A public installation presented by CONTACT in partnership with the Ryerson Image Centre and Ryerson
University.

Also on view in the RIC Student Gallery, April 29 – May 28, 2017:

Alexa Phillips: Cyborg Clones
This installation examines the ubiquity of screen-based technology and the changing relationship between the body and physical space using 3D scanning and 3D printing technologies to create a series of portraits.