CONTACT Photography Festival - Altered Realities
Featuring: Claudette Abrams, Anthea Baxter-Page and Berkley J. Abrams Page
On May 1st we unveiled the first works for our exhibition Altered Realities for the 25th Anniversary Edition of the CONTACT Photography Festival. The show will be presented online as well as in person in our Gallery Box along with other Gallery Box Vitrines on Ward’s Island from May 1st to May 31st (2021). These can be viewed outdoors from the sidewalk in an accessible and socially distanced setting.
Each week we will rotate the works by each artist on view. Thematically the works play with the concept of isolation. Isolation psychologically as well as physically and how these have been exemplified during the pandemic. Displayed in individual open-air vitrines which plays off the concept of isolation — connection and disconnection. We will be holding free walking tours on May 22nd, 23rd and 29th with the curator and artists in attendance to discuss each body of work. These can be booked online here. We will also host an outdoor closing party to celebrate the show on Sunday May 30th at 1 to 3pm (as long as Covid safety advisories allow).
Anthea explores famous tourist destinations which are normally teeming with people. Taken on a low-fi Holga camera these sites are captured without the city bustle normally experienced. This series is called Ghost Towns and she captures the essence of the human spirit which resonates within the structures and walls of these spaces. With the lack of tourism across the world many of these sites have benefitted from the reduction in human traffic. In some places the natural world has crept back in with coyotes being spotted on the Golden Gate Bridge as well as bird’s song improving since a reduction of human noise.
Claudette has digitally extracted planes from her images creating imposing voids of negative space. Living on Toronto Island, she is used to air traffic which in normal times is incessant. Grounded is a series that not only highlights the limited travel that is currently happening across the world as well as the isolation that it reveals. Both environmentally beneficial on the one hand while also creating a disconnection between our usually internationally connected world.
Berkley in the Off Days series, examines connection and disconnection affected by the global pandemic. She photographed a natural space she connects to for combating feelings of anxiety, disconnection and mental numbness. In a world where being outdoors has never been more important for physical and mental health, these images capture many of these opposing feelings. With nods to technology, work, people and place; the most surprising isolation is the one she found within herself.
We will donate 20% of net profits from the Altered Realities exhibition to The Encampment Support Network.
Source:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/pandemic-san-francisco-birds-song-improved