Tyler Mitchell, *Untitled* (Structure), 2019. © Tyler Mitchell. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

Written by Katie Grierson

Today, April 27, the Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival announced its full program and highlights for May 2022. Spread throughout Greater Toronto, the Festival showcases exhibitions within museums, galleries, and artist-run centers, as well as outdoor installations, artist talks, lectures, workshops, and more. The 26th Edition of the Festival will feature over 140 exhibitions and outdoor installations which will creatively explore, address, and capture the world, whether that be a social, cultural, or political frame. The Festival is a celebration of photography, and the diversity and number of programming reflects the importance the medium has in our present, past, and future.

Memory Work Collective, *Portrait of Dom, Rewilder*, 2022, (mixed media on giclee print). Courtesy of the artists.

Sunil Gupta, #7, from the series *Sun City,* 2010. Courtesy of the artist and Hales Gallery, London and New York; Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto; and Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi. © Sunil Gupta. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2022.

Highlighted by the Festival is the work of Tyler Mitchell, whose work Cultural Turns will be on display in three different sites. Cultural Turns contemplates identity and the Black experience. Brendan George Ko’s The Forest is Wired for Wisdom can be seen on billboards throughout Toronto, pairing photography and poetry to bring to life the beauty of the natural world through gorgeous photos of flora and forest. The Forest is Wired for Wisdom doesn’t let us forget that this beauty is also fragile. Mahtab Hussain will be working with Toronto’s Muslim youth in An Ocean in a Drop: Muslims in Toronto as he uses his lens as a means to challenge stereotyping and give a voice to his subjects. The list of impressive and talented artists could go on, something the Festival prides itself in and can’t wait to share with us.