February 10 – Extended until March 27, 2022
Calgary-based non-profit, the Exposure Photography Festival announces its programme and exhibiting artists for its eighteenth edition of the festival, to take place throughout February 2022. Previous festivals have received over 850,000 visits and this year Exposure estimates another large audience to the extensive program of exhibitions and events hosted in galleries, local businesses, online and outdoors.
Exposure’s curated exhibitions, the International Open Call and Emerging Photographers Showcase, will be hosted at Contemporary Calgary, a significant visual arts destination dedicated to modern and contemporary art. The exhibitions present a broad range of works, including photocollage, conceptual photography, politically engaged practices and works that embrace social and individual experience, as well as visual explorations of identity and personal narratives.
The Exposure 2022 International Open Call exhibition will feature the work of photographers and visual artists based around the world who incorporate, celebrate, or challenge the photographic medium within their practices. Selected by Julie Crooks, Curator, Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the exhibition will present the works of contemporary photographers based in Canada, Argentina, Australia, China, Saudi Arabia, UK and USA.
The Exposure 2022 Emerging Photographers Showcase celebrates the rich talent of early-career practitioners who are based in the province. Selected by Hana Kaluznick, Assistant Curator in the Department of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), the exhibition presents the work of photographers based in Calgary, Edmonton, Canmore and Medicine Hat while providing an insight into our dynamic and growing community of fine art photographers here in the Alberta.
Exposure’s 2021 Emerging Photographers of the Year award recipient Joel Matthew Warkentin will be presenting new work ‘The Parable of the Boy and the Barren Olive Tree’. The exhibition is an introspective personal journey of Joel’s upbringing, both within and without the institution of the Baptist Church, explored through photography, sculpture and performance.
New for 2022, Exposure will be collaborating with Los Angeles based photo-zine publisher Hamburger Eyes on creating an exhibition and photo-zine reading space. Through an extensive display of black and white photographs that have been selected and curated by Hamburger Eyes’s Ray Potes, the exhibition captures both the unseen and iconic moments of everyday life. Local photo-zine makers will also be invited to participate in the reading space at Contemporary Calgary to celebrate the diversity of Alberta’s local zinesters.
Exposure will bring an exciting city-wide public exhibition to its audiences in Calgary. In partnership with Pattison Outdoors, Exposure Billboard will show the work of 31 international and local artists and photographers via digital billboards located throughout the city. Photographs will be hosted in three different locations for a three-week duration. Exposure continues to provide innovative ways for Calgarians to engage with the arts.
EXPOSURE 2022 INTERNATIONAL OPEN CALL
Juried by Julie Crooks, Curator of Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Exposure 2022 International Open Call exhibition features the work of photographers and visual artists based around the world who incorporate, celebrate or challenge the photographic medium within their practices. The exhibition shows a broad range of works, including photocollage, conceptual photography, politically engaged practices and works that embrace social and individual experience, as well as visual explorations of identity and personal narratives.
Exhibiting Artists are Aljohara Jeje (Saudi Arabia), Andrea Alkalay (Argentina), Andrew Jackson (Canada/UK), Bindi Vora (UK), Diana Cheren Nygren (USA), Diana Nicholette Jeon (USA), Fang Tong (Canada), Greta Pratt (USA), Jacinta Giles (Australia), Jamie Robertson (USA), Julianna Foster (USA), Khim Hipol (Canada), Marcus Newton (USA), Sarah Barker (Australia) and Xiaofa Li (China).
For more information on our exhibiting artists please see Exposure Festival’s website.
EXPOSURE 2022 EMERGING PHOTOGRAPHERS SHOWCASE
Juried by Hana Kaluznick, Assistant Curator in the Department of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Emerging Photographers Showcase presents the work of fourteen photographers and visual artists based in Treaties 6,7 and 8 Territories in Alberta. The exhibition celebrates the rich talent of early-career practitioners who are based in the province while providing an insight into our dynamic and growing community of fine art photographers here in Alberta.
Exhibiting Artists are AJ Kluck, Alex Thompson, Brayden Kowalczuk, Cody Wheeler, Connor Caldwell, Daniela Szeoke, Hesamaddin Rezaei, Jeremy Fox, Leia Guo, Louie Villanueva, Manikarnika Kanjilal, Raeann Cheung, Ryan Lee, Stephan Chan and Tyler Burke.
For more information on our exhibiting artists please see HERE (LINK TO ARTIST PROFILES).
EXPOSURE 2022 EMERGING PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR: JOEL MATTHEW WARKENTIN
Each year one artist who has exhibited in the Exposure Emerging Photographers Showcase is selected by the juror to win the Emerging Photographer of the Year Award. The recipient of this prestigious award is given the opportunity to present a solo show at the following year’s Exposure Photography Festival. The award provides the emerging artist with a platform to show their work while furthering their professional practice and building their career within photography. Exposure mentors and supports the artist in developing their vision in the best possible way. Our 2021 juror, Ryan Doherty, Chief Curator of Contemporary Calgary, selected Joel Matthew Warkentin as the 2021 Emerging Photographer of the Year.
The Parable of the Boy and the Barren Olive Tree is an introspective journey through my upbringing, both within and without the institution of the Baptist Church. Structured as a three-act play, the series of photographs and sculptures investigates the derangement my body, mind, and spirit have endured, and how this history affects present platforms surrounding my spirituality.
This collection of photographs and sculptures explores distinctive emotional memoirs collected from a young age through adolescence within a religious institution. While created through the metamorphosis of emotional feeling to objectified structure they utilize abstract language to express specific moments in history. The autobiographical and performative photographs demonstrate these events and their residual effects, while the exhibit in its entirety is an act of transformation: from impressionable, then injured, then the final and continual act of growth.
Biography
Joel Matthew Warkentin is an emerging sculptor, photographer, and performance artist. His work focuses on the connection of the spirit, movement, space, and their interaction with the human experience.
Born in Calgary, he was groomed to think in three dimensions. As a young man, he was counselled in the wood-shop by his father, and grandfathers.
His drive and ambition, from an early age, have grown with him into his adulthood and career. He acquired a Bachelors of Fine Arts, with distinction, from the Alberta University of the Arts, formerly Alberta College of Art and Design and a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Calgary. His artwork has traveled across Canada and internationally, into galleries and exhibitions. It has transcended into various mediums, and he is currently exploring the spirituality of his work in still life. As his practice grows he is not afraid to take risks and explore his creativity beyond sculpture; his appetite for knowledge and trade has fed into the development of his practice, and his study into a universal spiritual experience.
EXPOSURE X HAMBURGER EYES EXHIBITION & PHOTO ZINE READING SPACE
New for 2022, Exposure will be collaborating with Los Angeles-based photo-zine publisher Hamburger Eyes on creating an exhibition and photo-zine reading space. Through an extensive display of black and white photographs that have been selected and curated by Hamburger Eyes Ray Potes and Exposure’s Beth Kane, the exhibition captures both the unseen and the iconic moments of everyday life.
Alongside this exhibition, to celebrate the diversity of zinesters in the province local photo-zine makers are invited to present their work in the Alberta photo-zine reading space. To participate visit Contemporary Calgary during opening hours and drop off your work in the dedicated space.
About Hamburger Eyes
Publishing since 2001, Hamburger Eyes has developed its own signature brand of photography and provided an outlet for both up-and-coming and established photographers worldwide. Hamburger Eyes specialises in black and white photography, and has published over 200 titles of zines, magazines, and books. In 2019, Hamburger Eyes collaborated with American clothing and skateboarding lifestyle brand Supreme on launching a new publication. Also in 2019, director Aaron Rose partnered with Mailchimp to present a documentary on Hamburger Eyes and its influence on photography and self-publishing.
FLASH FORWARD INCUBATOR PROGRAM EXHIBITION
For the fifth consecutive year, the Exposure Photography Festival has brought the Flash Forward Incubator Program to Alberta, in partnership with the Toronto-based Magenta Foundation.
The Flash Forward Incubator Program is an extension of high school arts programming that prepares students for a successful transition out of high school and into post-secondary institutions and a careers in the arts. The program consists of four main activities that are completed online and supported by professional artists. The program has been designed to support critical and creative thinking, and to help students develop their work to show in a professional online exhibition that you can view today.
The Flash Forward Incubator Program Exhibition features the work of students from the 2021/2022 participating schools and youth programmes including Westmount Charter School in Calgary, the Esker Foundation’s Esker Youth Engagement (EYE) in Calgary and Eastglen High School in Edmonton.