Experience and explore the 11th annual Capture Photography Festival from April 1 to 30, 2024. Local, national, and international artists will converge in Metro Vancouver to celebrate lens-based art in its forms through public art projects, exhibitions, tours, and panels.
Capture Photography Festival
- Date: April 1 to 30, 2024
- Location: Various Metro Vancouver Locations
Capture Photography Festival begins with a free (donations accepted) Opening Reception on Thursday, April 4, 2024 at The Pendulum Gallery with a special exhibition. On Time explores the relationship between time and photography, challenging the traditional notion that image only captures a single moment in time. Works on display by Sungseok Ahn, Gabi Dao, Pendarvis Harshaw, Brandon Tauszik, Aaron Leon, Anthony Lepore, Diane Meyer, Alp Peker, and Gonzalo Reyes Rodriguez.
Festival Highlights:
Will to adorn by Karice Mitchell
From Vancouver-based, photo-based installation artist Katrice Mitchell, Will to adorn is located on 5 billboards in Vancouver. Mitchell’s material includes images from vintage publications by Black authors. She re-stages images by posing in front of her camera and using a lens- filter that refracts elements of the image. Mitchell honours and celebrates the ways Black women represent themselves for themselves. Adornment becomes a form of personal self-expression, identity, self-care, and joy. Join the festival’s assistant curator Chelsea Yuill for an Artist Talk with Karice Mitchell at The Polygon Gallery on April 11, 2024 (registration required).
Furiously Happy by Arielle Bobb-Willis
Los-Angeles based photographer Arielle Bobb-Willis is known for her colourful, unconventional images that focus on the human figure presented in an atypical fashion. Furiously Happy is a multi-sited project on 4 billboards along East Hastings between Glen St. and Clark Drive. She states: “Within paintings, there’s no end of things you can do with the body and this has pushed me to see restrictions within reality differently.” Join an Artist Talk with Arielle Bobb-Willis at Emily Carr University on April 15, 2024 (registration required).
Echoes of a Near Future by Caroline Monnet
Located at the GreyChurch Billboard at Fraser St. and 15th Avenue, this series of photographs by Anishinaabe French and Canadian contemporary artist, Caroline Monnet features Indigenous women creatives. Monnet has known these women for years, including celebrated documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin, Québécois actress Dominique Pétin, costume designer and chef Swaneige Bertrand, visual artist Catherine Boivin, as well as the artist herself, and her sister. By presenting them in her work, dressed in elaborate, powerful attire, she celebrates the self-determination and strength of the Indigenous women she portrays. Join an Artist Talk with Caroline Monnet on April 18, 2024 at Emily Carr University (registration required).
If I hadn’t created my own world, I would have died in someone else’s by Diane Severine Nguyen
At the Contemporary Art Gallery, Diane Severine Nguyen presents the exhibition In Her Time (Iris’ Version), a new edit of her 2023 feature-length film In Her Time. Set amid the outsized period sets of Hengdian World Studios, the largest film studio in Asia. The film follows Iris, a young actress searching for her voice as she prepares for a leading role in a Chinese historical epic. Nguyen approaches the photographic moment as one of transformation. Join an Artist Talk with Diane Severin Nguyen and curator X Zhu-Nowell on April 23, 2024 at The Dance Centre (registration required).
Velvet Terrorism: Pussy Riot’s Russia curated by Maria Alyokhina in collaboration with Ingibjörg Sigurjónsdóttir and Ragnar Kjarttanson
The exhibition Velvet Terrorism: Pussy Riot’s Russia originated at Kling & Bang (Iceland) and has toured to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Denmark), the Museum d’art contemporain de Montréal, and now, The Polygon Gallery. Velvet Terrorism sets out to chronicle the history of Pussy Riot’s actions from the group’s formation in 2011 to present day. The exhibition invites the audience to explore a labyrinth of the group’s guerrilla actions and the serious consequences of executing them, illustrating an ever-inventive fight for freedom when one’s life is increasingly at stake.
Visit the Capture 2024 calendar to view upcoming installations, exhibits, talks, and more.
About Capture Photography Festival
Launched in 2013, Capture Photography Festival is Western Canada’s largest lens-based art festival. Annually in April, lens-based art is exhibited at dozens of galleries and other venues throughout Metro Vancouver as part of the Exhibition Program, alongside an extensive Public Art Program, an Events Program that spans tours, films, artist talks, and community events as well as an educational partnership with Emily Carr University. Capture’s vision is to connect Vancouver to the world through lens-based art.
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