Capture Photography Festival Closing Celebration
For the closing celebration of Capture Photography Festival, acclaimed curator and cultural historian Dr. Mark Sealy will join Wedge Collection founder and owner Dr. Kenneth Montague to discuss the works in As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic, with a special attention to the currents of social change that run throughout them. This conversation will explore the origins and histories behind select works, expanding the photographic frame to glimpse the complex contexts from which these iconic images emerge.
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About Dr Kenneth Montague
Dr. Kenneth Montague is a Toronto-based dentist, art collector and the founding director of Wedge Curatorial Projects, a non-profit arts organization. Since 1997 Montague has been promoting both emerging and established artists via exhibitions, lectures and workshops. His focus is African Canadian and Diasporic art, which he also showcases in his privately-owned Wedge Collection.
Montague has served on the African Art Acquisition Committee at Tate Modern as well as the Photography Curatorial Committee at the Art Gallery of Ontario; he is currently an AGO Trustee and an advisor to their Department of Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora. He is also a juror for the Scotiabank Photography Award, Canada's largest photography prize. Montague is a frequent panelist at international art symposiums including the Bamako Encounters/Biennial of Contemporary African Photography and Black Visualities, Lisbon; as well, he has been invited to lecture on contemporary art at the National Gallery of Canada, the Smithsonian's National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the Studio Museum in Harlem, among other institutions. His curatorial projects include 'Becoming: Photographs from the Wedge Collection', and 'Position As Desired: Exploring African Canadian Identity'. In 2021 the Aperture Foundation published the award-winning title As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic, a celebration of works from his Wedge Collection; an associated exhibition is currently touring North America. For his efforts in supporting the arts and his mentoring of emerging creatives, Montague received an Honorary Doctorate from OCAD University, Toronto (2016).
About Dr Mark Sealy
Dr Mark Sealy OBE is Executive Director of Autograph and Professor, Photography, Rights and Representation at University Arts London – London College of Communication, also affiliated to the Photography Archive and Research Centre.
Sealy is interested in the relationship between art, photography and social change, identity politics, race, and human rights. He has written for many of the world’s leading photographic journals, produced numerous artist publications, curated exhibitions, and commissioned photographers and filmmakers worldwide.
Lawrence and Wishart have published Sealy’s more recent critical writings on photography. These titles include Photography: Race, Rights and Representation (2022) and Decolonising the Camera: Photography in Racial Time (2019).
Photo: Dawit L. Petros, Hadenbes, 2005. Courtesy of the artist/Bradley Ertaskiran, from As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic (Aperture, 2021)