2019 Events at the IMC

Winter Exhibitions Opening Party

Join us to celebrate a new season of exhibitions. Light refreshments and cash bar provided.

Artist Talk with Laura Henno

Join French artist Laura Henno for a talk on her work, in conjunction with her silent video M’Tsamboro on view on our Salah J. Bachir New Media Wall.

[CANCELLED] Special Exhibition Tour of True to the Eyes: The Howard and Carole Tanenbaum Photography Collection

Join curators Paul Roth and Charlene Heath for a behind-the-scenes look at True to the Eyes: The Howard and Carole Tanenbaum Photography Collection.

Noon Time Collection Talk with Petrija Dos Santos

Want to learn more about The Image Centre's (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) collection? Join Petrija Dos Santos for a talk about the ethical responsibilities of the outsider photographer. Selected from a competitive open call for Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) students and recent alumni, Dos Santos will utilize objects from our collection as case studies.

Collectors in Conversation

Building the Tanenbaum Collection with Howard and Carole Tanenbaum, Howard Greenberg and Stephen Bulger, moderated by Paul Roth

Join us for this talk on building a collection in conjunction with True to the Eyes: The Howard and Carole Tanenbaum Photography Collection. Watch the video

Tanenbaum Lecture with Rafael Goldchain

The Howard and Carole Tanenbaum Lecture Series is co-presented biannually by The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) and the School of Image Arts, Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). Watch the video

Opening Party for Fehn Foss: A Broader Sense of Belonging

Join us to celebrate the opening of Fehn Foss: A Broader Sense of Belonging in our student gallery.

Noon Time Collection Talk with Anna Jedrzejowski and Charlene Heath 

Want to learn more about The Image Centre's (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) collection? Join Anna Jedrzejowski, The Image Centre Collection Cataloguer and Reference Specialist, and Charlene Heath, The Image Centre Archives Assistant and co-curator of True to the Eyes: The Howard and Carole Tanenbaum Photography Collection, for a discussion on the haptic nature of 19th- century photographic objects. The talk will feature works from The Image Centre's holdings alongside examples from the speakers' personal collections, offering audience members the opportunity to touch and engage with specific objects.

Free and open to the public. No RSVP required. 

Special Exhibition Tour of True to the Eyes: The Howard and Carole Tanenbaum Photography Collection

Join Paul Roth and Carole Tanenbaum for a behind-the-scenes look at True to the Eyes: The Howard and Carole Tanenbaum Photography Collection.

Free and open to the public. No RSVP required.

Noon Time Collection Talk with Enriqueta Zafra

Want to learn more about The Image Centre's (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) collection? Join Enriqueta Zafra, Associate Professor in Toronto Metropolitan University's (formerly Ryerson University) Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, for a talk commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of the Spanish Civil War. Focusing on works from the Black Star Collection of photojournalism, Zafra will discuss the conflict's relationship to the advancement of war photography.

Free and open to the public. No RSVP required.

CONTACT Festival Launch Party / Summer Exhibitions Opening Party

Join us at The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) for the launch of the 2019 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival and the opening of our summer season of exhibitions. Free and open to the public! 

Artist Talk with Moyra Davey

Join 2018 Scotiabank Photography Award winner Moyra Davey for a talk about her work, presented in conjunction with the exhibition Scotiabank Photography Award: Moyra Davey. Watch the video

No RSVP required; please arrive early to ensure seating. 

Special Exhibition Tour of Scotiabank Photography Award: Moyra Davey

Join curator Gaëlle Morel and writer and curator Brian Sholis for a behind-the-scenes tour of Scotiabank Photography Award: Moyra Davey.

Artist and Curator in Conversation: Meryl McMaster with Gaëlle Morel

Join curator Gaëlle Morel for a conversation with artist Meryl McMaster on her exhibition As Immense as the Sky. Watch the video

Opening Party and Artist Talk for Pearson Ripley: Shut Away

Join us for a party and artist talk to celebrate the opening of Pearson Ripley: Shut Away in The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) Student Gallery. 

Special Exhibition Tour of Scotiabank Photography Award: Moyra Davey

Join curator Gaëlle Morel and writer and curator Brian Sholis for a behind-the-scenes tour of Scotiabank Photography Award: Moyra Davey.

Fall Exhibitions Opening Party

Join us to celebrate a new season of exhibitions. Light refreshments and cash bar provided.

Noon Time Collection Talk with Peter Higdon

A Transformative Acquisition: The Gift of Mira Godard

Join The Image Centre's (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) Founding Collections Curator Peter Higdon for a talk on Toronto gallerist Mira Godard’s generous 1994 gift of fifty-seven works from her personal collection toToronto Metropolitan University's (formerly Ryerson University) School of Image Arts. Photographs by Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Eugène Atget, Bill Brandt, Wynn Bullock and Maurice Tabard, each a significant figure in the history of photography, make up the donation now held by the The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre). Higdon will show and discuss a selection of the works and speak about backstory of this important acquisition.

Curators in Conversation: Sandrine Colard with Julie Crooks

Join Sandrine Colard, guest curator of The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture, and Julie Crooks, Associate Curator at the AGO, for a conversation about the making of The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) exhibition, which celebrates the viewpoints of women in African photography from the nineteenth-century to today. Watch the video

Please arrive early, as seating is provided on a first-come, first-served basis.

Lodestar: Phil Solomon, in Memoriam

Co-presented by Ad Hoc (Experimental Film Collective) and The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre)

An elegy and celebration of the life and work of extraordinary experimental filmmaker and masterful optical printer Philip Stewart Solomon (1954-2019), this free program brings together films that were made as gifts by and for Solomon over the last twenty years, and films that he especially treasured.

Special Tour of The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture

Join Gaëlle Morel, The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) Exhibitions Curator, and Marieme Lo, Associate Professor in Women and Gender Studies & Director of the African Studies Program at the University of Toronto, for a special behind-the-scenes tour of The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture.

Noon Time Collection Talk with Philippe Depairon

Bombs, Beaches, Bunkers: Looking at Life in a Nuclear Mode, 1945–1990 

Looking at photographs from the Black Star Collection of photojournalism, this talk by Philippe Depairon, recipient of The Image Centre's (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) 2018 Howard Tanenbaum Research Fellowship, will examine the evolution of nuclear iconography between 1945 and 1990. Beginning with the nuclear tests undertaken at the Bikini Atolls and on Indigenous soil in Nevada, we will see how pictures of the iconic and infamous nuclear mushroom reached their apogee in the 1960s before atomic bomb testing became illegal, therefore rendering nuclear energy invisible. The talk will likewise discuss the attempts of various photographers to make the atomic complex and its potential consequences visible again.

Opening Party for Grayson James: After Alexandria

Join us for a party to celebrate the opening of Grayson James: After Alexandria in our Student Gallery.

Special Tour of The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture

Join Gaëlle Morel, The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) Exhibitions Curator, and Michèle Pearson Clarke, Photo Laureate for the City of Toronto, for a special behind-the-scenes tour of The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture.

After Alexandria: Exhibition Tour and Drop-in Workshop

Join Grayson James for a tour of After Alexandria, starting at 12:15 pm. He will present a brief (15 minute) talk on the project, outlining the theoretical and conceptual frameworks that brought him to the work. Afterwards, viewers are invited to join him as he works on the participatory aspect of this project, reading, intervening in, and documenting the texts in the space.

Nia Centre Youth Photography Showcase

Join us for a presentation of photographs produced by youth from Nia Centre for the Arts, inspired by The Image Centre’s (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) current exhibition, The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture. A collaboration between Nia Centre and The Image Centre's Youth in Focus program. 

Noon Time Collection Talk with Ingrid Mida

Boys in Dresses and Other Fashions of the Victorian Age

Join Dr. Ingrid Mida, author of The Dress Detective and Research Fellow in the MLC Research Centre at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University), for a talk about Victorian fashions as seen in selected images from The Image Centre's (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) collection. Not long after photography’s invention, the medium allowed families and individuals to stop time, preserving the reflected light of their image for generations to come, and these photographs are embedded with clues related to codes of dress and behaviour that mark them as mirrors of their age. This talk will examine the nuances of late nineteenth-century fashions and give special emphasis to photographs of boys wearing dresses, a little-known facet of Victorian dress codes for children.

Tanenbaum Lecture with Syrus Marcus Ware

Art, Activism, and Futurity

For two decades, Toronto-based artist and activist Syrus Marcus Ware has explored the themes of justice and climate change through his practice spanning painting, installation, performance, and video. In this talk, Ware discusses his hopes for the future of activism and how artistic practice can help us understand an uncertain world. Watch the video

Please arrive early as seating is limited.

After Alexandria: Exhibition Tour and Drop-in Workshop

Join Grayson James for a tour of After Alexandria, starting at 12:15 pm. He will present a brief (15 minute) talk on the project, outlining the theoretical and conceptual frameworks that brought him to the work. Afterwards, viewers are invited to join him as he works on the participatory aspect of this project, reading, intervening in, and documenting the texts in the space.

Special Tour of The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture

Join Gaëlle Morel, The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) Exhibitions Curator, and Kenneth Montague, Founding Director of Wedge Curatorial Projects and The Wedge Collection, for a special behind-the-scenes tour of The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture.

Artist Talk with Grayson James 

Join Grayson James for an artist talk, where he will discuss how he came to socialist politics, why he thinks they are the correct response to the crises we are experiencing in the world, and how they relate to After Alexandria.