Maximum Exposure 31: Reverie

School of Image Arts at Toronto Metropolitan University

Jassie Teal, Fragmented Memories, 2025, photographic print, 23 x 15 inches

Reverie

April 25 – May 3, 2026, 12 – 4pm
School of Image Arts, Toronto
maxex.ca

Maximum Exposure 31 presents Reverie, a year-end exhibition showcasing student work from the Image Arts program at Toronto Metropolitan University. This exhibition includes works made by a diverse group of image-makers, each with their own concerns and interests. It includes photographs, books, videos, and installations, and moves between documentary, editorial and artistic modes of making. Through all this difference, they are united by their engagement with the lens-based image, a medium which always begins from the real and photographable world. For this reason, the works in this show articulate an essential space between imagination and reality, where inner vision transforms external reality into something new.

A “Reverie” is something between a dream and a vision. It can also be an expression of desire, a call to action, an attempt to reshape the real world into something new and better. This exhibition communicates the potential of the imagination and the transformational power of the creative process through which artists are able to propose new worlds and possibilities. It is dedicated to the power of creative vision in a world that needs it more than ever.

Olivia Quain, Turning to Stone, 2025, photographic print, 8.3 x 11.7 inches

About Maximum Exposure and the Artists

Maximum Exposure is a student-run, end-of-year exhibition showcasing image-based work by students from Toronto Metropolitan University. It is free and open to the public, and organized by a group of fourth-year Image Arts Photography students as part of their senior thesis. Maximum Exposure aims to create meaningful opportunities for students across all academic years to gain experience and connect with the Greater Toronto Area’s art community and industry.

This year’s exhibition, Reverie, celebrates the 31st iteration of Maximum Exposure. The show features a diverse range of emerging artists and storytellers from within Image Arts and beyond, bringing together photographers, filmmakers, digital artists, and installation-based practices. This year also includes the annual Third Year Show, Inhale / Exhale, presented in Open Space and the Assembly Gallery (IMA 117/118), curated by a team of third-year students, as well as General Submissions, bringing together a diverse selection of works from student artists across all years and programs at Toronto Metropolitan University. Without a singular theme, it opens space for a range of perspectives, evolving creative practices, and ideas, highlighting individual voices at different stages of growth and creating a space where varied styles and ways of seeing can exist side by side.

It is important to understand the longstanding history that has brought us to reside on this land known as Tkaronto and understand our place within its history. This land we reside on carries with it imprints of its past. We as the students of Toronto Metropolitan university acknowledge this past and stand in solidarity with indigenous peoples and the deep wounds they carry. The present and future stewardship of this land, we hope will be one of equal opportunity, equal bounty and respect. Tkaronto is in the dish with one spoon territory. The dish with one spoon territory is a treaty between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas and Haudenosaunee that bound them to share the territory and protect the land. Subsequent indigenous nations and peoples. Europeans and all newcomers have been invited into this treaty in the spirit of peace, friendship and respect. As we work to heal our communities, in shared responsibility, we encourage our viewers to donate to and support grassroots indigenous organizations to continue this advocacy.

Maximum Exposure 31
School of Image Arts
122 Bond Street
Toronto, ON M5B 1W1
maxex.ca
maxex@torontomu.ca

Instagram @maxex2026
Facebook @MaximumExposure31

Accessibility:
Maximum Exposure 31 at the School of Image Arts is fully accessible. For more information, visit here.

Image Descriptions:
1. A picnic is set up by a calm lake on a sunny day. A red striped blanket holds a basket with flowers and a wine bottle, along with snacks like grapes, bread, jam, and a cup. A camera sits nearby. Trees and water fill the background, creating a peaceful scene.
2. A young woman wearing minimal clothing curls up between a rocky landscape. Her arms protect her head from the ground. The sunlight is very strong, creating bold shadows behind the rocks. The image is in black and white.

Maximum Exposure would not be possible without the generous donations from our sponsors. We would like to thank the following organizations for their ongoing support of publicly accessible art and emerging artists.