Critical Distance Program Type CONTACT Photography Festival

Billboard on Shaw presented by Critical Distance, featuring EBBÓ (Sacrifice): Orula, The Witness, by Yelaine Rodriguez, 2021.

This edition of the Billboard on Shaw features an image from EBBÓ (2021), a new production by Yelaine Rodriguez, commissioned by Americas Society. EBBÓ (1998) is an opera-oratorio by Cuban composer Louis Aguirre and librettist Rafael Almanza. The piece is an expression and reinvention of Afro-Caribbean religious, aesthetic, and musical heritage.

EBBÓ (Sacrifice): Orula, The Witness is curated by Noor Alé and Claudia Mattos (AXIS Curatorial) and presented in conjunction with their exhibition OF THE SACRED, a Core Program of the 2022 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.

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Curated by AXIS Curatorial (Noor Alé and Claudia Mattos)
Featuring Farah Al Qasimi, Kaya Joan, Bea Parsons, Yelaine Rodriguez, Whyishnave Suthagar

Opening Reception
Saturday, April 23, 2022
1 – 4PM EST
401 Richmond Building, Suite 122

Of the Sacred is an exhibition that gathers a selection of artists who examine the divine through a highly personal lens, attesting to belief as a means of unearthing histories of colonialism, translocation, and individual circumstance. Tracing cultural inheritances of faith, lineages of intergenerational knowledge, and the syncretism of beliefs that emerge in the face of migrations, Of the Sacred initiates conversations about the role of belief in this time in history and the need for sanctuary—on a personal and collective scale—in light of the conditions of this age.

Of the Sacred is a Core Exhibition of the 2022 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.

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Billboard on Shaw presented by Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival in partnership with Critical Distance, featuring Monarch Butterflies at El Rosario II by Brendan George Ko, 2020.

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Alex Jacobs-Blum, Curtiss Randolph, Camille Rojas, Eve Tagny Curated by Liz Ikiriko April 27–June 2, 2019 Opening Reception and Curator’s Tour with Liz Ikiriko Saturday, April 27th, 1–3pm   “An archive, but not an atlas: the point here is not to take the world upon one’s shoulders, but to crouch down to the earth, and dig.” — Allan Sekula An Archive, But Not An Atlas is a group exhibition that explores personal and social histories as they are unearthed through movement, gesture, language, and land. Four emerging artists address unconscious memory as it is embodied across generations and geographies. Through photography, performance, and film, the artists’ knowledge is rooted in observing subtleties expressed in familial, domestic, or cultural locations.Find out more

Featuring Lacie Burning, Jade Nasogaluak Carpenter and Dayna Danger | Curated by Cass Gardiner and presented in partnership with Aboriginal Curatorial Collective In partnership with Aboriginal Curatorial Collective–Collectif des commissaires autochtones, Critical Distance is pleased to present FORWARD FACING, a Featured Exhibition of the 2018 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival. Curated by Cass Gardiner (Toronto/Brooklyn), Forward Facing is an exhibition that examines intersectionality within Indigenous identity through the photographic, video, craft, and installation practices of Dayna Danger (Montreal), Lacie Burning (Vancouver), and Jade Nasogaluak Carpenter (Calgary).Find out more