This year, CONTACT Photography Festival celebrates its 30th edition. The Toronto-based event is dedicated to exhibiting, analysing and celebrating lens-based media in all its forms. Over the past three decades, it has attracted over 20 million visitors and presented the work of over 8500 artists, Darcy Killeen, Chief Executive Officer, says: “this is a milestone for our organisation, 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.” 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 archives and embrace a return to experimentation from the medium’s earlier days and applying them to contemporary concerns. Here are five artist from the festival.
Hassan Hajjaj | La Salle de Dym des Femmes Arabes
Moroccan artist Hassan Hajjaj is known for his photography, printed fabrics and films. CONTACT spotlights La Salle de Dym des Femmes Arabes (The Arab Women’s Gym), a series shot over 15 years. Women in niqabs take centre stage against the backdrop of the gym – a space that, especially in the Arab world, has largely been male-dominated. Hajjaj’s images deftly undermine stereotypes and subvert western views, featuring strong, empowered women unapologetically taking up space in a masculine world.
Jessica Slipp | Becoming a Rock
Presented as a two-channel video diptych, this iteration of Canadian artist Jessica Slipp’s ongoing project Becoming Rock invites viewers to consider the 1,450-ton granite boulders in Devonian Pond. Slipp enters the frame of the video, stands up, and unfolds a large sheet of paper printed to represent rock textures. She then crumples the print, crouches down and camouflages her body with it, becoming a rock herself for several minutes. She then stands again, folds up her photograph, and leaves the scene.
Yann Pocreau | Archipel
Archipel is based on a found 35mm slide photograph, originally intended for projection in the context of a larger grouping of travel images. Projecting the image onto the wall of his studio, Pocreau repeatedly rephotographed the image with slight colour variations, suggestive of a film strip or contact sheet. Location unknown, the quintessential landscape captures the hazy horizon and the vastness of the sea. The artificial colours evoke a mysterious, dream-like quality that is both haunting and familiar, futuristic yet timeless.
Dawit L. Petros I SPA
This survey exhibition celebrates the career of Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist Dawit L. Petros, winner of the 2025 Scotiabank Photography Award. Petros is an Eritrean emigrant who spent formative years in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Kenya before settling in central Canada. 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.
Sheida Soleimani | Ghostwriter
Iranian-American artist, educator, and activist Sheida Soleimani’s work is presented in a two-part exhibition as part of Capture Photography Festival, Vancouver and CONTACT Photography Festival. Soleimani constructs detailed compositions that marry photographs, props, found objects and people to create magical, dream-like montages. Deliberately combining her familial history with the political, Soleimani’s practice considers cultural inheritance, the environment and migration.
CONTACT Photography Festival runs 6 May – 1 August: contactphoto.com
Words: Emma Jacob
Image Credits:
1. Celia Perrin Sidarus, Magnolias of May, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Patel Brown.
2. Hassan Hajjaj, Orthodox, Part of La Salle de Gym des Femmes Arabes series, 2011/1432. Courtesy of Hassan Hajjaj Studio.
3. Hassan Hajjaj, Southpaw, Part of La Salle de Gym des Femmes Arabes series, 2012/1433. Courtesy of Hassan Hajjaj Studio.
4. Jessica Slipp, Becoming Rock (Fleuve Rock), 2018–ongoing, multi-channel video (still). Courtesy of the artist.
5. Yann Pocreau, Archipelago, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.
6. Yann Pocreau, Archipelago, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.
7. Dawit L. Petros, Matthios, 2005, pigment print. Courtesy of the artist and Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal.
8. Sheida Soleimani, Agitator, 2025, Courtesy of the artist Edel Assanti, London, and Harlan Levey Projects, Brussels.
9. Sheida Soleimani, Dissidant, 2025, Courtesy of the artist Edel Assanti, London, and Harlan Levey Projects, Brussels.
