Michael Awad’s ongoing work, The Entire City
Project, consists of interpretive photographic
portraits of the urban environments he encounters.
This exhibition features images of familiar and
foreign places: his daily route through the
neighbourhood of Little Italy in Toronto, the
architectural wonders of La Scala in Milan, the
historical sites of the Arsenale in Venice and the
geography of Art Basel. His large-scale images are
gathered from still and moving camera apparatus,
allowing movement and information to coexist. Awad
strives for an objective visual inventory yet
achieves a perceptual, intuitive record — the
resulting images combine memory and document. Many
of these images are continuous panoramic
exposures, echoing our processions through the
streets.

Awad achieves a level of abstraction through
compression, accumulation and optical distortion.
Similar to British photographer Eadweard
Muybridge, Awad’s sequential presentation of
multiple views reflects the passage of time and
points to the empirical aspirations of the medium.
Awad reminds the viewer that photography as a tool
can only approximate how we experience and remember.

Michael Awad lives in Toronto and he has shown at
the Art Gallery of Ontario (2006), the Venice
Architectural Biennale (2002) and the Power Plant
Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto (2001).