“It’s great to be able to showcase the artists of tomorrow,” says MaryAnn Camilleri. The founding president of the Magenta Foundation, an arts publishing house based in Toronto, has promoted hundreds of emerging photographers over the past years with books, web projects and an international competition. Now Magenta launches the Flash Forward Festival, a five-day biennial celebration that unites the work of artists from Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., and, as this year’s guest country, the Netherlands. “In my university days, I watched so many talented photographers not pursuing life as artists because of how hard it is. That affected me greatly,” says Camilleri. Catch the exhibitions, workshops, parties and more in Toronto’s Liberty Village neighbourhood from October 6 to 10. And, of course, enjoy this snapshot on us.
Jason Larkin, age 31, London (U.K.)
Past Perfect. Museums exist because of “an innate human desire to collect and interpret the world around us,” says Larkin. His works, depicting the loaded curating styles of Egyptian museums, recall the Orwellian quote, “Who controls the past controls the future.”
Alex Kisilevich, age 27, Toronto
…and then you die. “My grandmother saved her nice dresses for special occasions. My father pleaded with her to stop waiting to wear them. But she never did. And then she died.” Kisilevich’s series, inspired by his gran, explores irony, memories and mourning.
James Frank Tribble, age 27 | Tracey Mancenido-Tribble, age 30, New York
Hurry Up & Wait. For a year, Tribble & Mancenido became bona fide American truckers. “These images are a by-product of the world we entered and a semblance of the places eighteen-wheelers and truckers are permitted,” say the artists.
Guillaume Simoneau, age 32, Montréal
Love and War. “For years, I documented the complexity of a young U.S. Army sergeant’s love life before, during and after her deployment to Iraq.” The resulting work is an attempt to piece back together the emotional fabric of a conflict-ridden subject.
Katrina d’Autremont, age 30, Philadelphia
Si Dios Quiere. For this series, d’Autremont photographed her family in her grandfather’s home in Argentina both before and after he passed away. “I documented the shifting family dynamic as everyone began to figure out their new roles.”
Andrew McConnell, age 33, Enniskillen (Northern Ireland)
The Last Colony. McConnell’s portraits of the Saharawi, a West Saharan people who have largely lived in refugee camps for the last 35 years, were taken at night. Says McConnell, “I imagine that for these people, the past 35 years must have been like one long night.”
