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Archives 2024 exhibition

Jah Grey Putting Ourselves Together

March 28 – May 25, 2024
  • BAND Gallery
    Jah Grey, Oge Anthony Classic, (Stylist: Uche Uba Creative Directors: Jah Grey, Uche Uba, and Pris Zim), 2024. Courtesy of the artist
Jah Grey, Oge Anthony Classic, (Stylist: Uche Uba Creative Directors: Jah Grey, Uche Uba, and Pris Zim), 2024. Courtesy of the artist

This solo exhibition by Jah Grey features portraits of trans women, drag queens, and non-binary individuals from Lagos, Nigeria who exude romance and reverence. Created with Nigerian creative director Uche Uba, these photographs are part of UnCommon Beauty, a 2022 docuseries by Priscilla Nzimiro Nwanah, paying tribute to activists like Fola Francis who fight for LGBTQ2S+ rights against Nigeria’s criminalizing laws. Challenging the rigid norms of respectability and politeness, each portrait embodies the indomitable aspiration for being true to oneself. Putting Ourselves Together presents self-assembly as a visual testament to revolutionary love and radical imagination.

Curated by Joséphine Denis

Presented by BAND in partnership with CONTACT

Jah Grey is a self-taught photographer whose portraiture explores the nuances and complexity of Black masculinity through the experiences of a Black Transman. His work challenges binary gender norms and promotes broader understandings of identity and belonging. Grey’s photographs have been displayed in prestigious venues worldwide, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Ford Foundation Gallery. His work has been featured in publications like Huffington Post and Afropunk NYC. Additionally, Grey founded the Black Men’s Therapy Fund to address the mental health needs of Black men, underscoring his commitment to social change through art and activism.

Joséphine Denis, born in Haiti and raised in Port-au-Prince and New York, is a curator and writer whose work focuses on BIPOC spaces. She advocates for Black diasporic art and its deeper engagement, to foster a nuanced understanding and recognition of the specific contexts surrounding contemporary practices.Her work, rooted in community dialogue, is guided by her kin. Her writing appears in RELATIONS: Diaspora and Painting (Phi, Hirmer, 2020), Pierre Francois Ouellette art Contemporain, and Ada x, among others. Denis has worked at Serpentine Galleries, London; Faurschou Foundation, Beijing; SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tiohtià:ke; and The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Tkaronto.

Curated by Joséphine Denis

Almagul Menlibayeva My Silk Road to You & Nomadized Suprematism

Aga Khan, Aga Khan Park

Two series highlighting the complex geopolitical realities and enduring mythologies shaping contemporary...

Archives 2024 Public Art

Yuwen Vera Wang The Land of Rebirth

Artspace TMU

A documentary series capturing the lives of the elderly population of Wang...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Jah Grey Putting Ourselves Together

BAND Gallery

A visual testament to revolutionary love and radical imagination...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Mathieu Grenier Crystal Gazers

Blouin Division

A mixed-media exploration of analogue and digital materiality, probing human relationships to...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Adam Swica Documents

Christie Contemporary

Experimental, multiple-exposure images that give light a sculptural bearing...

Archives 2024 exhibition

L. M. Ramsey DAMNED

CONTACT Gallery

A poetic homage to beavers, explored through the materiality of photographic technologies...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Andrew Dadson Colour Field

Daniel Faria Gallery

Paintings and photographs exploring a deep interest in the forces that shape...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Lorna Bauer Sunday is Violet

Galerie Nicolas Robert

New works inspired by the ties between the historical emergence of photography...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Zun Lee for:GROUND

Goethe-Institut

A survey of Lee’s street photography proposing lingering and loitering as reclamation...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Ken Lum Scotiabank Photography Award

The Image Centre

A celebration of Lum’s career and work, which wryly counters colonial and...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Hypervisibility: Early Photography and Privacy in North America, 1839–1900

The Image Centre

A historical look at the shifting boundaries between public and private life...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Working Machines: Postwar America through Werner Wolff’s Commercial Photography

The Image Centre

An exploration of Wolff’s commercial practice in postwar North America...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Clarissa Tossin Streamlined: Belterra, Amazônia / Alberta, Michigan

The Image Centre

A subtle inquiry into the histories of globalized production and their material...

Archives 2024 exhibition

In Dimension: Personal and Collective Narratives

The Image Centre

An exhibition featuring participants in The Image Centre’s Poy Family Youth in...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Ruth Kaplan & Claudia Fährenkemper Body/Armour

Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre

A juxtaposition of two photographers’ work, exploring human and non-human vulnerability, ritual,...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Frances Cordero de Bolaños Coffee and Pine (Spirit of the Natural World)

John B. Aird Gallery

A multi-sensory exhibition of ecofeminist works emphasizing the importance of preserving natural...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Seth Fluker Outer Circle Road

Larry Wayne Richards Gallery

A series of photographs of Toronto conveying the interplay between the built...

Archives 2024 exhibition

People of the Watershed: Photographs by John Macfie

The McMichael

Selected works centering the lives and resiliency of Indigenous people in Northern...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Danielle Dean Out of this World

Mercer Union

A new film blurring fiction and documentary, examining labour, racialized identity, and...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Nuits Balnéaires United in Bassam

Meridian Arts Centre

An exploration of the shared heritage of the seven founding families of...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Nelson Henricks Don’t You Like the Green of A?

Paul Petro Contemporary Art

A surrealist, multimedia interpretation of the synaesthesia shared by Henricks and artist...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Ho Tam A Manifesto of Hair

Paul Petro Contemporary Art

An exploration of the ties between race, class, identity, and commerce via...

Archives 2024 exhibition

June Clark Witness

The Power Plant

Clark’s first survey in Canada, featuring groundbreaking mixed-media works exploring history, memory,...

Archives 2024 Public Art

Jake Kimble Make Yourself At Home

United Contemporary

An investigation of the concept of home, and how “coming home” manifests...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Strange Love

Urbanspace Gallery

An exhibition exploring the propagandistic battle of the cold war through historical...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Julya Hajnoczky The Prefix Prize

Urbanspace Gallery

Immersive works made through ethical foraging, highlighting the fragile relationships among plants,...

Archives 2024 exhibition
CorePublic ArtOpen CallArtistsCurators
  • Core
  • Public Art
  • Open Call
  • Artists
  • Curators
Archives 2024 exhibition

Jah Grey Putting Ourselves Together

March 28 – May 25, 2024
  • BAND Gallery
    Jah Grey, Oge Anthony Classic, (Stylist: Uche Uba Creative Directors: Jah Grey, Uche Uba, and Pris Zim), 2024. Courtesy of the artist
Jah Grey, Oge Anthony Classic, (Stylist: Uche Uba Creative Directors: Jah Grey, Uche Uba, and Pris Zim), 2024. Courtesy of the artist

This solo exhibition by Jah Grey features portraits of trans women, drag queens, and non-binary individuals from Lagos, Nigeria who exude romance and reverence. Created with Nigerian creative director Uche Uba, these photographs are part of UnCommon Beauty, a 2022 docuseries by Priscilla Nzimiro Nwanah, paying tribute to activists like Fola Francis who fight for LGBTQ2S+ rights against Nigeria’s criminalizing laws. Challenging the rigid norms of respectability and politeness, each portrait embodies the indomitable aspiration for being true to oneself. Putting Ourselves Together presents self-assembly as a visual testament to revolutionary love and radical imagination.

Curated by Joséphine Denis

Presented by BAND in partnership with CONTACT

Jah Grey is a self-taught photographer whose portraiture explores the nuances and complexity of Black masculinity through the experiences of a Black Transman. His work challenges binary gender norms and promotes broader understandings of identity and belonging. Grey’s photographs have been displayed in prestigious venues worldwide, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Ford Foundation Gallery. His work has been featured in publications like Huffington Post and Afropunk NYC. Additionally, Grey founded the Black Men’s Therapy Fund to address the mental health needs of Black men, underscoring his commitment to social change through art and activism.

Joséphine Denis, born in Haiti and raised in Port-au-Prince and New York, is a curator and writer whose work focuses on BIPOC spaces. She advocates for Black diasporic art and its deeper engagement, to foster a nuanced understanding and recognition of the specific contexts surrounding contemporary practices.Her work, rooted in community dialogue, is guided by her kin. Her writing appears in RELATIONS: Diaspora and Painting (Phi, Hirmer, 2020), Pierre Francois Ouellette art Contemporain, and Ada x, among others. Denis has worked at Serpentine Galleries, London; Faurschou Foundation, Beijing; SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tiohtià:ke; and The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Tkaronto.

Curated by Joséphine Denis

Almagul Menlibayeva My Silk Road to You & Nomadized Suprematism

Aga Khan, Aga Khan Park

Two series highlighting the complex geopolitical realities and enduring mythologies shaping contemporary...

Archives 2024 Public Art

Yuwen Vera Wang The Land of Rebirth

Artspace TMU

A documentary series capturing the lives of the elderly population of Wang...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Jah Grey Putting Ourselves Together

BAND Gallery

A visual testament to revolutionary love and radical imagination...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Mathieu Grenier Crystal Gazers

Blouin Division

A mixed-media exploration of analogue and digital materiality, probing human relationships to...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Adam Swica Documents

Christie Contemporary

Experimental, multiple-exposure images that give light a sculptural bearing...

Archives 2024 exhibition

L. M. Ramsey DAMNED

CONTACT Gallery

A poetic homage to beavers, explored through the materiality of photographic technologies...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Andrew Dadson Colour Field

Daniel Faria Gallery

Paintings and photographs exploring a deep interest in the forces that shape...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Lorna Bauer Sunday is Violet

Galerie Nicolas Robert

New works inspired by the ties between the historical emergence of photography...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Zun Lee for:GROUND

Goethe-Institut

A survey of Lee’s street photography proposing lingering and loitering as reclamation...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Ken Lum Scotiabank Photography Award

The Image Centre

A celebration of Lum’s career and work, which wryly counters colonial and...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Hypervisibility: Early Photography and Privacy in North America, 1839–1900

The Image Centre

A historical look at the shifting boundaries between public and private life...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Working Machines: Postwar America through Werner Wolff’s Commercial Photography

The Image Centre

An exploration of Wolff’s commercial practice in postwar North America...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Clarissa Tossin Streamlined: Belterra, Amazônia / Alberta, Michigan

The Image Centre

A subtle inquiry into the histories of globalized production and their material...

Archives 2024 exhibition

In Dimension: Personal and Collective Narratives

The Image Centre

An exhibition featuring participants in The Image Centre’s Poy Family Youth in...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Ruth Kaplan & Claudia Fährenkemper Body/Armour

Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre

A juxtaposition of two photographers’ work, exploring human and non-human vulnerability, ritual,...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Frances Cordero de Bolaños Coffee and Pine (Spirit of the Natural World)

John B. Aird Gallery

A multi-sensory exhibition of ecofeminist works emphasizing the importance of preserving natural...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Seth Fluker Outer Circle Road

Larry Wayne Richards Gallery

A series of photographs of Toronto conveying the interplay between the built...

Archives 2024 exhibition

People of the Watershed: Photographs by John Macfie

The McMichael

Selected works centering the lives and resiliency of Indigenous people in Northern...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Danielle Dean Out of this World

Mercer Union

A new film blurring fiction and documentary, examining labour, racialized identity, and...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Nuits Balnéaires United in Bassam

Meridian Arts Centre

An exploration of the shared heritage of the seven founding families of...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Nelson Henricks Don’t You Like the Green of A?

Paul Petro Contemporary Art

A surrealist, multimedia interpretation of the synaesthesia shared by Henricks and artist...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Ho Tam A Manifesto of Hair

Paul Petro Contemporary Art

An exploration of the ties between race, class, identity, and commerce via...

Archives 2024 exhibition

June Clark Witness

The Power Plant

Clark’s first survey in Canada, featuring groundbreaking mixed-media works exploring history, memory,...

Archives 2024 Public Art

Jake Kimble Make Yourself At Home

United Contemporary

An investigation of the concept of home, and how “coming home” manifests...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Strange Love

Urbanspace Gallery

An exhibition exploring the propagandistic battle of the cold war through historical...

Archives 2024 exhibition

Julya Hajnoczky The Prefix Prize

Urbanspace Gallery

Immersive works made through ethical foraging, highlighting the fragile relationships among plants,...

Archives 2024 exhibition

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CONTACT is a Toronto based non-profit organization dedicated to exhibiting, analyzing and celebrating photography and lens-based media through an annual festival that takes place every May.

Land Acknowledgement

CONTACT acknowledges that we live and work on the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, and that this land is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. CONTACT is committed to promoting Indigenous voices; to generating spaces for ongoing, meaningful, and creative Indigenous-settler dialogue; and to continuous learning about our place on this land.

Anti-Oppression

CONTACT is committed to the ongoing development of meaningful anti-oppressive practice on all levels. This includes our continuing goal of augmenting and maintaining diverse representation, foregrounding varied and under-represented voices and perspectives via our public platform (the Festival and all related programs), as well as continually examining the structures of power and decision-making within the organization itself. We aim to actively learn, grow, and embody the values of inclusivity, equity, and accessibility in all facets of the institution, as an ever-evolving process.