Construction Time Again

As I mentioned in my first post on Toronto's Contact Photography Festival, some of the art here is exhibited in public spaces like subway stations, bus stops and billboards. Fashion photographer Jonathan de Villiers' "ShangHigh" series is being shown on the courtyard patio of a restaurant downtown. de Villers is a fashion photographer from London, now living in Paris. ShangHigh is a fashion spread that he shot for French Vogues Hommes and it is being shown here as part of Contact.



I attended a talk by a group of photographers where de Villiers was present. He talked about the concept for this photo shoot where he dressed Chinese laborers in designer suits and shot them on construction sites across Shanghai.



As Shanghai is going through a construction boom, workers from the countryside are moving into the city to work in low-paying construction projects. They sleep and eat on-site and spend as little as possible to be able to save and support their families back home. They all dream of one day owning apartments in the city, driving expensive cars and wearing designer clothes.



deVilliers' work documents Shanghai's impressive expansion in the background while commenting on the contrast between China's current economic reality and its future aspirations.

Inclusion of fashion photography in the festival is evidence of the increasing influence of fashion, art and design on each other.

This post concludes my coverage of the Contact Photography Festival in Toronto. Next stop: New York, and the new spring exhibits in Chelsea.

An Inconvenient Truth

Finnish artist Ilkka Halso presented his Museum of Nature series at MOCCA (Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art) as part of Contact Photography Festival in Toronto. In his photographs he encloses nature (a lake, a waterfall, and a forest) with man-made structures. He is commenting on environmental damage. Nature is getting depleted to the point where we will one day get to only enjoy it as a rare performance. We will pay to sit around a waterfall to watch what it used to be like.

Apocalypse Now

Another artist that was shown in the Contact Photography Festival in Toronto was Simen Johan, a Norwegian now based in New York. He presented his large-scale photography of animals in apocalyptic landscapes. Apparently the title references a prayer: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done..."

In the above picture you see two moose locking antlers as parakeets fly about. The animals are taxidermy forms inserted into picturesque landscapes - a constructed image, the theme of the festival this year - The background looks like a deserted land, devoid of any human life, where the last things remaining are the animals shown. Don't despair though, because it looks like there is hope. When the fight produces a victor, new life will start forming.