Location: The Bentway Studio (55 Fort York Blvd.)

Open Now
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As insatiable and compulsive collectors of found photographs and keen observers of sociological patterns, both Dutch artist and designer Erik Kessels and French multimedia artist Thomas Mailaender take the absurd and ridiculous very seriously. Joining forces for this collaborative project, they draw from the photographic archives of the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) to activate their constructed urban playscape.

Play Public (2021)—a part of The Bentway’s Playing in Public season—integrates a quirky selection of these archival images, spanning the 1950s through the 1980s, onto large wooden structures suggestive of the remains of a fairground site, with various components arranged like a parkour course. Neighbouring The Bentway, the CNE is a longstanding late-summer staple in Toronto (unfortunately cancelled for a second year due to COVID-19), and its midway of games, rides, and attractions remains one of its most popular features. The installation reinvigorates the idiosyncratic images, bringing this past back to life in a contemporary environment.

Set within Canoe Landing, Kessels and Mailaender’s intervention is proximate to schools, playgrounds, a community centre, and vertical urban neighbourhoods where thousands of people live and work. While the pandemic has altered lives and cities, it has further highlighted the importance of public space as a site for play and well-being.

Click here to listen to Erik Kessels speak about the project >>

Co-commissioned by:

Play Public is a part of The Bentway’s Playing in Public season, a collection of outdoor and online projects that invite you to rediscover “play” in the city.

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About Thomas Mailaender 

Thomas Mailaender (born 1979) is a French multimedia artist living and working between Paris and Marseille. Known for his use of a wide range of techniques including ceramic, photography, collage and installation, he employs diverse materials, often re-appropriating images from the internet or his own huge archive. One of Mailaender’s attributes is his ingenuity and ability to conceive curious and creative exhibitions using everyday materials and his curated shows teem with humour and originality.

About Erik Kessels 

Erik Kessels is a Dutch artist, designer and curator with great interest in photography. Kessels is since 1996 Creative Partner of communications agency KesselsKramer in Amsterdam and London. As an artist and curator Kessels has published over 75 books of his ‘re-appropriated’ images and has written the international bestseller Failed It!

Kessels made and curated exhibitions such as Loving Your Pictures, Mother Nature, 24HRS in Photos, Album Beauty, Unfinished Father, and GroupShow. His mid-career retrospective was shown in Turin, Düsseldorf, Budapest and he exhibited this year in the SFMOMA. He was called “a visual sorcerer” by Time Magazine and a “Modern Anthropologist” by Voque (Italia).

 

About Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival

CONTACT is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to celebrating and fostering the art and profession of photography with an annual Festival in May throughout Toronto and year-round programming in the CONTACT Gallery. CONTACT embraces an inclusive and accessible approach to the medium, and cultivates collaborations with and among artists, curators, institutions, and organizations.

Each year CONTACT showcases lens-based projects by Canadian and international artists. The Festival’s Core Exhibitions are comprised of collaborations with major museums, leading galleries, and artist-run centres, as well as site-specific public art projects. These are cultivated through partnerships and commissions, and frame the cultural, social, and political events of our times. The Juried Call and Open Call Exhibitions present a wide range of works at galleries and alternative spaces across the city. The Festival’s Programs include photo-book initiatives, lectures, artist talks, panel discussions, and workshops. CONTACT exhibitions and programs are free and open to the public, with some exceptions at major museums.

*All images are courtesy of jack Landau

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Play Public is supported by: