Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival (launch party), Ryerson Image Centre, 2018 © Clifton Li, Ryerson Image Centre

Join us on Wednesday, May 1, 7–11 pm at the Ryerson Image Centre for the launch of the 2019 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival

This season, the RIC is pleased to present three new shows:

Scotiabank Photography Award: Moyra Davey
This first survey exhibition celebrates the work of Toronto-born artist Moyra Davey, winner of the 2018 Scotiabank Photography Award. Based in New York and renowned internationally for her photographs, videos, writings, and artist books, Davey’s work examines interiority and disclosure, and the intersection of private and public discourse. The exhibition includes portraiture, still life and photographs of subway scenes, along with a suite of Davey’s visually arresting films, which interweave subjective narratives with the texts and lives of her influences, such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Sigmund Freud, Jean Genet, and most recently, Pierre Vallières.

Meryl McMaster: As Immense as the Sky
Wearing various designed costumes, sculptural garments, makeup, and custom-made props, Meryl McMaster examines the overlapping cultures and histories of both her Indigenous and European ancestors in this series of performative self-portraits. Documented at ancient sites in Saskatchewan and the shores of early settlement in Ontario and Newfoundland, her images originate from her interpretation and reenactment of patrimonial stories told by relatives, knowledge keepers, and friends. McMaster’s otherworldly personas pose theatrically in front of these majestic panoramas, speaking to how inherited historical narratives inform her dual identity.

Adrian Raymer: Rejects
Reenacting scenes from 35mm colour slides found after her estranged grandfather’s death, Adrian Raymer proposes a new narrative for the original images and explores how the truth becomes distorted over time as context is lost. Dancing on the line between fact and fiction, Raymer presents the props used within her reenactments as real artifacts, their history solidified by the presence of similar objects in both the old slides and in the gallery installation.

Moyra Davey, Subway Writers (detail), 2011/2014, 75 chromogenic prints, tape, postage, ink. Courtesy the artist; Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York; and greengrassi, London

Upcoming events, talks and tours

Wednesday, May 8, 7 pm
Artist Talk with Moyra Davey
122 Bond Street, room IMA-307 (third floor)

Wednesday, May 22, 6 pm
Special tour of Scotiabank Photography Award: Moyra Davey with curator Gaëlle Morel and writer and curator Brian Sholis

Wednesday, June 5, 7 pm
Artist and Curator in Conversation: Meryl McMaster with Gaëlle Morel

Wednesday, June 19, 6 – 8 pm
Opening Party and Artist Talk for Pearson Ripley: Shut Away

Wednesday, July 17, 6 pm
Special tour of Scotiabank Photography Award: Moyra Davey with curator Gaëlle Morel and writer and curator Brian Sholis

All events take place at the Ryerson Image Centre (33 Gould Street) unless otherwise noted. The RIC is an accessible space.

Ryerson Image Centre
33 Gould Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

ADMISSION IS FREE
Free exhibition tours daily at 2:30pm

www.ryersonimagecentre.ca
416-979-5164
ric@ryerson.ca
Follow us @RICgallery

Media Contact
Kristen Dobbin, Ryerson Image Centre, kristendobbin@ryerson.ca / T+416 979 5000 x7032