TORONTO.- CONTACT Photography Festival opens 30th edition of its annual citywide event spanning May 2026. CONTACT is the Toronto-based Festival dedicated to exhibiting, analyzing, and celebrating photography and lens-based media. The Festival provides numerous opportunities to experience a diverse range of exhibitions across greater Toronto, with hundreds of events including openings, artist talks, workshops, portfolio reviews, the CONTACT Photobook Fair, and more, sparking community engagement and nurturing an appreciation of contemporary lens-based practices.
Over the last 30 years, CONTACT has achieved some very impressive figures, through its engagement with artists and the community. The Festival has attracted over 20 million visitors and presented the work of over 8500 artists. CONTACT has produced over 4500 exhibitions, 200 public art projects, and over 2000 free public programs.
“Our 30th anniversary is a milestone for our organization, and we are truly grateful to the thousands of artists who have participated and shared their work with the public in exhibitions and programs across Toronto and on our website. Our free community wide month-long event continues to showcase exceptional Canadian and international talent, raising awareness of and appreciation for this captivating, multifaceted medium. We also thank our partners and sponsors for the tremendous support they have shown the Festival over the years,” said Darcy Killeen, CONTACT’s Chief Executive Officer.
The 2026 Core Program of Exhibitions and Public Art Installations, developed both by CONTACT and through partnerships with local and international organizations, highlights projects by exceptional Canadian and international artists. This year, the featured lens-based and mixed-media artists employ practices variously incorporating themes of decolonization, community-building, activism, protest, and revolution. Several work in collage and photomontage processes to address personal and collective memory, displacement and migration, diasporic experiences, queer realities, and world-building. Select artists also explore gaps in historical and contemporary archives and embrace a return to experimentation from the medium’s earlier days and applying them to contemporary concerns.
This year’s Core Program artists include: Shannon Bool, Ernesto Cabral de Luna, Bob Carnie, Kristi Chen, Delali Cofie, Marlene Creates, Dylan Dae-Shin, Larry Fink, Tim Georgeson, Mickey Green, Hassan Hajjaj, Alex Hall, Leala Hewak, April Hickox, Risa Horowitz, Spring Hurlbut, Philip Jessup, Aaron Jones, Marie-Claude Lacroix, Parker Lily, Lilly Lulay, Alvin Luong, Arnaud Maggs, Robert Mapplethorpe, Caroline Mauxion, Marzieh M. Miri, Marlene Hilton Moore, Sophia Oppel, Lu Pan, Celia Perrin Sidarous, Dawit L. Petros, Yann Pocreau, Kenna Robinson, Gabe Seamon, Jessica Slipp, Sheida Soleimani, Adam Swica, Ho Tam, Anouk Vervier, Sin Wai Kin, Bo Wang, Yujie Wang, and Ian Wilms.
Select 2026 CONTACT Photography Festival exhibitions and public art projects
Sin Wai Kin | CLOSER THAN IT’S EVER BEEN
CONTACT Gallery, 80 Spadina Ave, Suite 205 | May 1 – June 13 Sankofa Square | May 1 – 31
Billboards at College St & Delaware St | April 27 – May 24 Curated by Kelly Lui
Toronto-born and UK-based Sin Wai Kin brings fantasy to life through storytelling. Introducing worlds and characters via thematic bodies of research, from science fiction and non-dualistic philosophies to Peking opera and theoretical physics, Sin exposes the constructed narratives that converge in environments that re/iterate who we are, who we can become, and the stories we can tell. Parts of Sin’s multiverse will be presented across three sites during the Festival, including the Canadian premiere of the advertising campaign ESSENCE. Wai King, one of the artist’s characters, becomes the brand ambassador for a male cologne, promising “Your true self awaits.”
Through advertising, Sin reveals, “There isn’t an underlying objective reality that we uncover. What is ‘real’ is what we agree that it is.” Presented by CONTACT Photography Festival and Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, both organizations celebrating their 30th anniversaries in 2026. Supported by Sankofa Square and Pattison Outdoor Advertising.
Bo Wang & Lu Pan | Replicas of Contact
Billboards at Lansdowne Ave & Dundas St W/College St April 27 – May 24
Curated by Su-Ying Lee
This public artwork by collaborators Bo Wang (China/Amsterdam) and Lu Pan (Hong Kong) reaches across time, space, and histories of image-making. Juxtaposed on two double-sided billboards, archival photographs respectively depict a Canadian and a Chinese painter engaged in their craft. In a compelling intervention, Wang and Pan replace the paintings pictured within the images with works from the “opposing” artist’s milieu, generating a layered dialogue between past and present. Ultimately, the installation questions the narratives shaping our visual world and opens new possibilities for connection and understanding. Presented by CONTACT Photography Festival. Supported by Pattison Outdoor Advertising.
Celia Perrin Sidarous | Into the house of the heart,
Patel Brown, 21 Wade Ave., #2 | May 2 – June 13
Into the house of the heart, is a photographic body of work by Montreal-based artist Celia Perrin Sidarous about lineage, memory, relationality, interdependence, and love. It investigates the many layers of strangeness embedded in family photographs and their inherent hauntedness. Employing a collagist methodology, the work considers the multiplied potential of Sidarous’ own Egyptian family’s photographic archive. Into the house of the heart, borrows its title from the poem “Description of a Mandala” (1976) by artist Angus MacLise. Presented by Patel Brown.
Sheida Soleimani | Ghostwriter
Billboards on Clark Dr, Vancouver | March 21 – May 31
Billboards on Dundas St W and Rusholme Rd, Toronto | April 27 – May 24 Curated by Emmy Lee Wall
Iranian-American artist, educator, and activist Sheida Soleimani’s work is presented in a two-part exhibition as part of Capture Photography Festival, Vancouver (April 2026) and CONTACT Photography Festival. Soleimani constructs detailed compositions that marry photographs, props, found objects, live animals, and people to create magical, dream-like montages. Deliberately combining her familial history with the political, Soleimani’s practice considers her cultural inheritance, the environment, and migration, all through evocative, visually sumptuous pictures. Presented by Capture Photography Festival and CONTACT Photography Festival. Supported by Pattison Outdoor Advertising.
Delali Cofie | Independence Square II
Billboard at Queen St W & Augusta Ave | April 27 – May 24 Curated by Emilie Croning
In tandem with his solo exhibition A Place of Ours at United Contemporary, Ghanaian-Nigerian photographer Delali Cofie presents a larger-than-life, black-and-white photograph as a billboard installation at the corner of Queen Street West and Augusta Avenue. Set against the visual landscape of the city, the fleeting moment Cofie captured is transformed into a monumental public image, inviting passersby into a scene drawn from everyday life in Accra, Ghana, while moving through their own daily routines across the Atlantic. Presented by CONTACT Photography Festival in partnership with United Contemporary. Supported by Pattison Outdoor Advertising.
Aaron Jones | Lithic
McMichael Canadian Art Collection,10365 Islington Avenue | May 18 – July 5 Curated by John Geoghegan
Aaron Jones is a Toronto-based artist who works across media, often using found images and collage to create unique and immersive environments. Lithic, which takes its title from the Latin word for stone, is a site-specific digital collage incorporating the artist’s own photographs with imagery drawn from his archive of print material and deaccessioned books from the library of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. The resulting cosmic landscape is deeply layered with both imagery and
meaning. Presented by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.
Dawit L. Petros I SPA
The Image Centre, 33 Gould St | May 6 – August 1 Curated by Gaëlle Morel
This survey exhibition celebrates the career of Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist Dawit L. Petros, winner of the 2025 Scotiabank Photography Award. Spanning over 20 years, the presentation of more than 80 photographs, serigraphs, and books traces the artist’s long-standing inquiry into the legacy of colonial history in various locations across Africa, Europe, and North America. Presented by The Image Centre and Scotiabank.
Yann Pocreau | The Prefix Prize
Prefix ICA @ Urbanspace Gallery, 401 Richmond St W, ground floor | May 1 – July 25 Curated by Scott McLeod, with the Prefix Prize jury
The recipient of the sixth annual Prefix Prize is Québécois artist Yann Pocreau. Inspired to pursue the nature of light from a philosophical and an aesthetic perspective, Pocreau conceives of his work as a succession of images from which, in near-cinematic fashion, one may make a range of associations. For his exhibition, he presents an assemblage of new and recent works previously unexhibited in Toronto, including the world premiere of Les éclipses 1 (2026). For the past twenty years, Pocreau has been developing an outstanding body of work grounded in light and its role in photographic image-making (and beyond), including prints, projections, sculpture, installation, and public art projects.
Concurrently, CONTACT presents two public art projects by Yann Pocreau: Archipelago at King Edward Canada Line Station, Vancouver, as part of Capture Photography Festival, supported by Pattison Outdoor Advertising. (April 1 – August 31) and A Light Kiss at 650 Dupont Street, Toronto. Presented by CONTACT in partnership with Choice REIT Properties (May 1 – August 31).
Tim Georgeson | Kupa Piti / White Man in a Hole Billboards at College & Clinton Sts | May 1 – 24 Curated by Lucie Černá
In the heart of the South Australian outback, along the desolate Stuart Highway, lies Coober Pedy, the surreal “opal capital of the world” and subject of this billboard installation and the forthcoming book by Australian photographer Tim Georgeson. Kupa Piti / White Man in a Hole is a visual ode to nature and its power; a meditation on landscape punctuated by glimpses of human presence and the sacredness of the land. Through this evocative journey, Georgeson blurs the lines between utopia and dystopia, myth and reality, desert and dream. Presented by CONTACT Photography Festival, supported by the Australian High Commission in Canada and Pattison Outdoor Advertising.
The CONTACT Photobook Fair
Stephen Bulger Gallery | Saturday, May 2, 11am–5pm
The fifth edition of the CONTACT Photobook Fair brings together independent publishers and leading contemporary photographers from around the world to present newly released publications. The goal of the Fair is
to foster opportunities for artists, publishers, and book enthusiasts to build connections, discover new projects, and exchange ideas on books and photography. Publishers and vendors include: AC WORLD (Halifax), AGO Publishing, Artbook | D.A.P. (New York), Art Metropole, Artexte (Montréal), Chez Moi Books, Deadbeat Club (Los Angeles), Erika DeFrietas, Feminist Photography Network, Final Form (Montréal), Four Eyes Editions (Paris), Hyoryusha Books, Lyricalmyrical Books, Makan Press (New York), Omíkhlē Bookshop, Punto de Fuga (Bogotá), Reflex Editions, Rooney's (Hamilton), Some Print Studio, SPAO: Photographic Arts, Centre (Ottawa), STANLEY/BARKER (London, UK), Untitled Publishing (Prague), VU Photo (Quebec City). Presented in partnership with Stephen Bulger Gallery.
Supported by Cindy & Shon Barnett and Dara & Marvin Singer.
In addition, the Festival presents two reading rooms: Imprint: Contemporary Latin American Photobooks, presented with Punto de Fuga Bogotá, in partnership with Sur Gallery (Apr 16 – June 6); and Women’s Image Library, presented by Artexte at the CONTACT Photobook Lab (May 1 – June 6).
