Curation
We Buy Gold
Group exhibition
Gallery TPW, Toronto, ON | 2021
Questions of visibility and representation have long been queer concerns, tied as they are to hopes and demands for greater acceptance and civil rights. LGBTQ+ communities have frequently employed photography to positively reflect their complex and diverse experiences in the face of mainstream absences and distortions. We Buy Gold examines current grapplings with this legacy, alongside more recent strategies that move beyond the impositions of conventional visibility and respectability politics.
This exhibition was conceptualized during my 2020-2021 term as the inaugural Artist-in-Residence at the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto. It was a core exhibition of the 25th Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, and featured work by Nicholas Aiden, Lacie Burning, Séamus Gallagher, Tom Hsu, Christopher Lacroix, Wynne Neilly and Kyle Lasky, Isabel Okoro, Michelle Panting and Brianna Roye at Gallery TPW from July 30 – November 6, 2021.
Nicholas Aiden, Armpit 1 (2019)
Lacie Burning, Blockade Rider (2019)
Christopher Lacroix, We do not know when we started, we will not know when we will end (2019)
Michelle Panting, Petroleum Jelly and Plastic Wrap Self Portrait #1 (2018)
Brianna Roye, Zymbul (2020)
Séamus Gallagher, A Slippery Place 4 (2019)
Tom Hsu, Two Bananas (2018)
Wynne Neilly and Kyle Lasky, Our Favourite Spot (2018)
Isabel Okoro, colour and feel 1 (2020)