Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival Announces Highlights Of Its 2020 Edition

Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival today announced that the 24th edition of the city-wide event spanning the month of May 2020 will feature a selection of North American and international lens-based artists presenting a diversity of projects in museums, galleries, and public spaces across Toronto. The preliminary list of artists includes Laia Abril, Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukács, Fatma Bucak, Wendy Coburn, Alberto Giuliani, Aaron Jones, Christina Leslie, Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs, Carol Sawyer, Greg Staats, Krista Belle Stewart, Stephen Waddell, Miao Ying, and Tereza Zelenkova.

CONTACT Gallery will present the North American premiere of Spanish artist Laia Abril's powerful new series On Rape, the second chapter in her project A History of Misogyny. At the Campbell House Museum, in the first showing of her work in Canada, Czech artist Tereza Zelenkova will create a new project for CONTACT inside the historical house in Toronto's Justice District. As with Abril's work, Zelenkova's new project challenges traditional photographic depictions of evidence of crimes to evoke disturbing and mysterious human experiences.

The 2020 series of Public Installations will include a special focus on the environment, visualizing the future of the planet and humanity's role in it. This includes site-specific installations of monumental images by Swiss artists Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs at Metro Hall, and Italian artist Alberto Guiliani at Brookfield Place, each of whose works project dystopic not-too-distant futures based in the contemporary realities of a swiftly changing world.

Artistic Director Bonnie Rubenstein said, "Fostering a deep engagement with photographs and a heightened awareness of critical global issues, artists participating in the 2020 Festival expose physical, emotional, and environmental scars that reflect the fragility of our times."

CONTACT Executive Director Darcy Killeen said, "We are pleased to offer a preview of the exciting line-up of participating artists coming to Toronto in May. Several artists are showing in Canada for the first time and a number of them will create new works for our primary exhibitions and public installations. The CONTACT team is also thrilled to welcome back many of our long-standing partners and sponsors who continue to support one of the world's top photography festivals."