DYNAMIC LANDSCAPE at MOCCA (952 Queen West), to June 5. 416-395-0067. See listing. Rating: NNNN
They’re not landscapes, but these photographs all shake up expectations about how the world is represented.
Holland’s Scarlett Hooft Graafland, who likes extreme environments, enlisted Igloolik residents in performative projects like her orange lemonade igloo, bringing a gentle humour to issues facing the North.
Through telling details of home interiors like a tropical mural in a Siberian bedroom, Russian-Canadian Olga Chagaoutdinova depicts the hopes and dreams of ordinary Russians and Cubans.
Realizing the media were only interested in “teeming India,” Dayanita Singh moved away from photojournalism. Unreal colour and a weird combo of artificial and natural illumination give a dreamlike quality to her unpopulated nighttime scenes.
Viviane Sassen takes a depersonalizing approach to the figure whether shooting fashion photos in Amsterdam or these enigmatic images in Kenya. Faces are often obscured, actions difficult to interpret.
Though Contact artistic director and curator Bonnie Rubenstein avoids billing this as a show by women, a “female gaze” informs the outsider perspective of this original work.
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