2025 Events at the IMC

Artist Bio

Michael Benson’s work focuses on the intersection of art and science. It spans a range of media, from large-format photographic images to nonfiction books and essays, illustrated books, films and visual-effects sequences. Over the last decade, Benson has staged a series of increasingly ambitious shows of digitally-constructed extraterrestrial landscapes, both in museums and art galleries worldwide. He has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other venues. A recent Visiting Scholar at the MIT Media Lab, Michael Benson is a Fellow of the New York Institute of the Humanities. For the last few years Benson has been using scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) to focus on natural design at sub-millimeter scales for a project titled Nanocosmos.

Guest Speaker Bio

Ann Thomas was Senior Curator of Photographs and Interim Chief Curator at the National Gallery of Canada, retiring in March 2021. She is currently working as an independent expert on the history of photography and as a curator of photographs.

Over her career of more than forty years she has lectured, participated on panels and juries, done portfolio reviews, organized numerous exhibitions and installations and is the author of several catalogues and publications Among the major publications she has authored are Beauty of Another Order: Photography in Science (1997) Lisette Model (1990), No Man’s Land: The Photographs of Lynne Cohen (2001) and more recently The Extended Moment: Fifty Years of Collecting Photographs at the National Gallery of Canada (2018). Max Dean: Portrait of the Artist as Artist September 2022-March 2023 (Portrait Gallery of Canada – online). She is currently researching and writing on the work of Canadian artist, Spring Hurlbut.

Curator Bio

Paul Roth has been Director of The Image Centre at Toronto Metropolitan University since 2013. Previously, he served as Senior Curator of Photography and Media Arts at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC; as Executive Director of The Richard Avedon Foundation in New York; and as archivist of the Robert Frank Collection at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Since 1990, he has organized (or co-organized) more than 100 museum exhibitions and film programs, including Stories from the Picture Press: Black Star Publishing Co. and The Canadian Press (2023-2024); Gordon Parks: The Flávio Story (2018); Jim Goldberg: Rich and Poor (2018); Edward Burtynsky: Oil (2009); and Richard Avedon: Portraits of Power (2008). He is author and co-editor of Gordon Parks: Collected Works (Steidl, 2012), among many other titles.

Speaker Bio

Luz Sierra, born in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, is a Toronto-based professional in photographic collections and preservation. She holds a BA in Photography with a minor in Art History from the University of Puerto Rico and an MA in Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University. Sierra has worked as a researcher and cataloguer for the Montgomery Collection of Caribbean Photographs at the Art Gallery of Ontario (2022) and as an archivist for ARCHIVO at Sur Gallery (2023), and has participated in numerous conferences on cataloguing in Toronto and Puerto Rico.

Speaker Bio

Trevor Paglen is an artist whose work spans image-making, sculpture, investigative journalism, writing, and engineering. His solo exhibitions have been held at major institutions such as the Smithsonian, Carnegie Museum of Art, and Fondazione Prada. Paglen’s projects include launching artwork into orbit, contributing to the film Citizenfour, and creating a radioactive sculpture in Fukushima. He has authored several books and articles on experimental geography, artificial intelligence, state secrecy, and photography. A MacArthur Fellow and recipient of the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, Paglen’s work has been featured in prominent publications like the New York Times and Wired. He holds degrees from UC Berkeley and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Artist Bio

Clara Gutsche (Canadian, b. American, 1949) studied visual arts at Concordia University, Montreal (MFA, 1986). A co-founder of the artist-run centre Powerhouse Gallery/La Centrale in Montreal (1973), she has also been an educator, teaching photography at Champlain College, Saint-Lambert and Concordia University. In the 1980s, along with her husband and frequent collaborator David Miller, she was awarded two major commissions from the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), documenting the Lachine Canal and the construction of the CCA’s museum building.

Gutsche’s photographs have been presented in solo and group exhibitions at Optica, Montreal; VU, Quebec City; Château d’Eau, Toulouse, France; Musée de la photographie, Charleroi, Belgium; the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona; and the Musée d’art de Joliette, Quebec. Her work can be found in the collections of The Image Centre; the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; Musée de la photographie, Charleroi, Belgium; and the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona. In 1997 she was the recipient of the Canada Council for the Arts Duke and Duchess of York Prize in Photography.

Artist Bio

Rebecca Wood is a multidisciplinary artist exploring relationships in the era of Hyperobjects. Through layered photographic materials, her work challenges binary thinking and highlights the circular nature of time, addressing the escalating hostility toward women. Committed to a speculative documentary practice, Wood avoids reinforcing dominant narratives. A professional photographer for over 20 years, she holds a BFA from the University of Guelph and is pursuing an MFA in Documentary Media Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University with a SSHRC research award. Wood has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at Contact Photo Festival, Milk Glass Gallery, and Gallery LeDeco in Tokyo.

Speaker Bio

Professor Doxtater’s national profile includes work in the public and private communications industry. He is a leading senior organizational and cultural specialist in Canada and the US, was past-curator and Chair of the Chiefswood Museum, is currently Chair of the Indigenous Institutes Quality Assessment Board (IIQAB) and a member of the Indigenous Advanced Education and Skills Council (IAESC). He was Head of Studio One of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). Doxtater was part of the producing team for the Gemini Award winning film Where the Spirit Lives that raised public consciousness of Indian Residential Schools in Canada--eventually led to the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). He served on the Sudbury Friendship Board and is a member of the Indigenous Innovations Council (ICC). He is Mohawk from Six
Nations Territory.

Speaker/Curator Bio

Gaëlle Morel has been the Exhibitions Curator at The Image Centre since 2010, during which time she has curated dozens of exhibitions and written and edited numerous publications. Her latest projects include Stories from the Picture Press: Black Star Publishing Co. & The Canadian Press; Mary Ellen Mark: Ward 81; and Lee Miller, a Photographer at Work (1932-1945). In 2009, Morel was the guest curator of the photography biennial, Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal. She is currently an instructor in the Film + Photography Preservation and Collections Management graduate program at Toronto Metropolitan University. Morel holds a PhD in the History of Contemporary Photography from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.