On view until May 31, 2025 in Toronto

The CONTACT Public Art Program presents projects by Canadian and international artists and photographers, developed both independently and in partnership with local and international arts and cultural organizations. On billboards throughout the city and at Davisville subway station, these highlighted projects are on view until May 31.

Kiri Dalena: Erased Slogans / Birds of Prey
Billboards at Lansdowne Ave & College St + Queen St W & Dufferin St
Curated by Su-Ying Lee

In her two ongoing series Erased Slogans and Birds of Prey, Filipina artist Kiri Dalena has re-worked archival images produced in the Philippines more or less a century apart. Both series convey Filipino histories of the struggles for self-definition and against silencing. Erased Slogans documents civil resistance against government powers, and Birds of Prey works against the propagandistic colonial lens. The selection demonstrates that the projects, begun in 2016 and 2024, respectively, remain globally relevant today, with those in power increasingly attempting to suppress dissenting voices, and cultures worldwide continuing to counter the harm of colonial images.

Image credit: Kiri Dalena, Birds of Prey / Erased Slogans, 2025, installation view, billboards at College St and Lansdowne Ave. Courtesy of the artist and CONTACT Photography Festival. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid

Suneil Sanzgiri: My Memory is Again in the Way of Your History (After Agha Shahid Ali)
Billboards at Dundas St W and Rusholme Rd
Billboards curated by Aamna Muzaffar

Haunted by questions of disappearance, loss, and revolutionary struggle, the experimental film An Impossible Address (2025) exhibited at Mercer Union continues Brooklyn-based artist Suneil Sanzgiri’s examination of the life of Angolan-born Goan revolutionary Sita Valles and the bonds of solidarity that developed between India and Africa against the Portuguese empire. Sanzgiri’s offsite billboard installation My Memory is Again in the Way of Your History (After Agha Shahid Ali) (2023-ongoing) speaks to disappearance, erasure, and forgetting, and considers the role of language in the public realm during moments of refusal and contestation. Film commissioned by Mercer Union, Toronto; and EMPAC—Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York. Presented by Mercer Union in partnership with CONTACT and Images Festival, Toronto. Billboards in partnership with Mercer Union.

Anu Kumar: Ghar
Billboards at College St & Clinton St
Curated by Elias Redstone

In a meditative exploration of cultural identity and familial bonds, Melbourne-based photographer Anu Kumar presents works drawn from her acclaimed series Ghar. In these intimate family portraits Kumar explores and challenges ideas of belonging, proving that personal art can transcend geographical boundaries to speak to universal human experiences, resonating far from their points of origin. In partnership with PHOTO Australia.

Jordan King: Untitled Polaroid Series
Billboards at Queen St W & Augusta Ave
Curated by Sameen Mahboubi

Since the early 2000s, Canadian artist Jordan King has kept a collection of Polaroids made with numerous creative collaborators. She found renewed interest in the format in 2020 upon inheriting some personal effects of legendary 1970s–80s trans drag performer International Chrysis, connected to King via a New York City apartment they both occupied, three decades apart. In response, King shot a series of Polaroids with long-time friend Greg Manuel in this apartment, paying homage to Chrysis’ legacy. Presented with Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography.

Alanna Fields: Unveiling
Billboards at King St W & Strachan Ave
Curated by Luther Konadu

U.S. artist Alanna Fields salvages historical photographic traces of Black queer life, focusing on mundane moments usually relegated to the margins of sensationalistic mainstream narratives. Unveiling features a selection of collages symbolizing the complexities and limitations of visibility and invisibility. Meditating on Black queer memory, vulnerability, and desire, they bring into focus everyday representations from the 1960s and ’70s.

Image credit: Alanna Fields, Unveiling, 2025, installation view, billboards at Strachan Ave & King St W. Courtesy of the artist and CONTACT.

Chuck Stewart: John & Alice Coltrane, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1966
460 King St W (north facade)
Curated by Mark Sealy

Presented as a monumental banner on the north façade of 460 King Street West, the striking black-and-white portrait of John and Alice Coltrane by American photographer Chuck Stewart (1927–2017) transports the viewer into one quietly charged instant, from a past lifetime. As curator Mark Sealy eloquently puts it in his poetic exhibition text, it is “as if all the music of their collaborative lives is being processed into the internal rhythms of life and love in this moment.”

Alisi Telengut: Sankofa Flora
Sankofa Square, Yonge St & Dundas St
Curated by Kelly Lui

In two short videos presented at Sankofa Square, Montreal-based artist Alisi Telengut animates photographs of plant environments ranging from an underwater ecosystem to flower shops, public parks, and botanical gardens. Loosely translating to “go back and get it,” “Sankofa” is a Twi word from Ghana suggesting a return to one’s roots. In this context, the images remind us of nature’s richness and our need to reconnect with it, even amid an industrial, urban space. Presented with Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival, supported by Sankofa Square.

Laure Tiberghien: Time Capsule
Davisville Subway Station
Curated by Gaëlle Morel

Presenting a selection of 19 abstract colour prints drawn from Laure Tiberghien’s first monograph, Time Capsule highlights the French artist’s long-term research and experimentation with camera-less photography. Inspired by 19th-century processes, the photographer exposes light-sensitive paper directly to natural and artificial light sources, with vibrant results achieved through extensive hands-on procedures.

Image credit: Laure Tiberghien, Time Capsule, 2025, installation view, Davisville Subway Station. Courtesy of the artist and CONTACT Photography Festival. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid

Buck Ellison: January Effect
4 Billboards along Dupont St
Curated by Emmy Lee Wall (Capture Festival)

Across billboards in Toronto and Vancouver, CONTACT and Capture jointly present the work of American artist Buck Ellison. In the series of still lifes presented in Toronto under the title January Effect, the artist combines coded symbols of wealth such as flowers, silk fabric, and images of historical paintings depicting families of social and political standing. These works help make visible the signs and symbols that have been used to propagate wealth over centuries and that continue to circulate broadly today.

All billboard projects are supported by Pattison Outdoor Advertising. For a complete list of the 2025 public art installations, including work by Roselie Favell and Robert Kautuk visit the CONTACT website.

CONTACT Photography Festival
80 Spadina Ave, Suite 205
Toronto, Ontario M5V 2J4
416 539 9595
info@contactphoto.com
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