14 must-see shows at Contact Photography Festival 2021
14 must-see shows at Contact Photography Festival 2021
The 25th annual photo festival s shows will roll out across public spaces and galleries throughout the year By Kelsey Adams and Kevin Ritchie
May 6, 2021
Contact Photography Festival is celebrating 25 years of taking over Toronto billboards, building facades and galleries with photo- and image-based art. Since galleries remain closed due to pandemic restrictions, this year the festival is switching things up.
With more time to prepare than the 2020 edition, there was a concerted effort to bolster virtual exhibitions and outdoor programming. No longer working in the confines of the month of May, Contact will roll out shows into the fall to overlap with the city’s Year of Public Art initiative in September.
Still from Beyoncé s Black is King.(Disney+)
We don t envy CBC Arts columnists Amanda Parris, Peter Knegt and Anne T. Donahue having to regularly try and make sense of this strange year with words. It was hard enough just to exist in 2020, let alone publicly reflect on said existence through the many, many words that came via Amanda s Black Light, Peter s Queeries and Anne s Anne-iversaries. We asked each of the columnists to look back at the year (mostly in horror, we assume) and pick their top five editions.
Amanda Parris
2020 was a perpetually bleak year, but one site of persistent joy for me arrived in the moments where I was able to utilize my platform to share and amplify critical stories, histories and voices. My favourite editions of Black Light enabled me to do that through interviews, listicles, oral histories and exposing forgotten histories.
NOW Magazine
These 22 Toronto live music venues closed in 2020
Music venues were already in a precarious position, but the pandemic has made many disappear this year By Richard Trapunski
The Mod Club was one of the biggest venues to call it quits this year.
Toronto music venues were in a precarious position before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, but now the situation is dire.
Most venues have been closed for nine months now, but there are some exceptions. A few hosted small, socially distanced shows in the summer when public health protocol briefly allowed for it, and many pivoted to livestreaming. And this was the summer of drive-in concerts and balcony jazz.