Images Festival – an independent film and media arts festival in Toronto – has released a statement outlining their commitment to accountability on issues of discrimination and racism. This follows an open letter the organization put out last August, responding to global anti-racism protests. In the festival's latest statement, the organization says its leadership “failed to act when anti-Black racism was called out” in 2019. Links to the festival's strategic plan, accountability work plan and other relevant documents are attached to the statement.
The winners of the 2020 and 2021 New Generation Photography Awards are displaying their work in a free outdoor exhibition at Ryerson University in Toronto. The winners, including Katherine Takpannie, Curtiss Randolph, Noah Friebel, Chris Donovan, Dainesha Nugent-Palache and Dustin Brons, each received $10,000. Their work will be featured in an exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada from Aug. 13 to Dec. 15.
Elise Dawson, Charles Venzon and Ayssa Bornn have won 2021 Platform Photography Awards. Each artist receives $2,000, a year of darkroom access and a one-year membership to Platform, a Winnipeg artist-run centre for photography and digital art. The winners each have a solo exhibition at the centre next year.
Holding Ground, a new exhibition by the Indigenous Intergenerational Exchange, opens Saturday at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. The exchange was led by artists Marianne Nicolson and Marika Swan, as well as educator Nikki Sanchez. Twelve participants, including Gerry Ambers, Aya Clappis, Ace Harry, Lisa Kenoras, Laura Manson, Jessica Mayhew, Feather Nault, Ross Neasloss Jr., Stephanie Papik, Coral Shaughnessy-Moon, Nabidu Taylor and France Trepanier, were invited to discuss culture, critical understanding and creativity online from February to May. Their conversations shaped the resulting exhibition, which includes ceramics, painting, drawing, poetry, photography and more. “In community, each generational role is necessary,” said Swan. “Isolated we are vulnerable. But in formation we have great strength in the diversity of our offerings.”
AKA and Paved Arts, two artist-run centres in Saskatoon, are displaying Regina artist Nic Wilson's photography on a billboard above the building that houses them. The photos are part of Wilson's ongoing series, A Floating Ruin, and refer to the history of still-life painting and advertising.
Into the Arctic, a film trilogy that follows Canadian adventurer and landscape painter Cory Trépanier, will be available for free on YouTube on July 17. Trépanier, whose work is featured here, mounts painting expeditions to six remote national parks over the course of the three films.
