May 5 – June 25, 2022

Now You See Me

Works by Dayna Danger, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Gaëlle Elma, Leila Fatemi, Kablusiak, Meryl McMaster & Vivek Shraya
Curated by Sandy Saad-Smith

Core Exhibition in the 2022 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival

Now You See Me is an exhibition that brings together artists who consider the power dynamics of image-making through their distinct practices. Dayna Danger, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Gaëlle Elma, Leila Fatemi, Kablusiak, Meryl McMaster, and Vivek Shraya variously identify as women, femme, and non-binary, and use photography to explore issues related to gender and cultural identity.

Employing tactics of performing, concealing, and revealing their bodies and those of their collaborators, the artists produce works that challenge normative, colonial assumptions. They address pressing political realities that are closely tied to their personal histories, and reveal paradoxes inherent in representations of racialized bodies. Although the works in the exhibition are generated from different perspectives and experiences, they share a reckoning with the historical and contemporary uses of the camera as a tool to perpetuate degradative narratives. Asserting themselves as directors of their own images, the artists pose questions about the complex cultural and gender-related politics that underlie self-representation, shifting perceptions of the politics that inform image-making with sharp critique and blatant defiance, while kicking the door open for new stories and conversations.