Cities are mutable, both culturally and creatively. Driven by a sometimes carnivorous impulse, the metropolis feeds on its own past, the various pasts of its individual neighbourhoods, in order to evolve into a future version of itself. But what remains of the past? Can we track the cultural, artistic, and social bonds of an area, map the essence of any given ’hood in its progression through time? How is the integral artistic spirit of a place—in the form of art, music, theatre, and storytelling—kept alive in the present?

David Hoffos, Scenes From the House Dream: Circle Street, 2003. It’s not every day that you are reminded that art, when at its best, is a complete and welcome interruption of the ordinary. It’s not every artist that, within the first few minutes, gifts you with a renewed sense of wonder for the mysterious and [...]

Jennie O’Keefe’s Mr. C. Goose. The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA) launched their summer exhibition last Friday with a big party featuring “the smooth summer sounds of Toronto synth-rock-pop combo The D’Urbervilles” as live entertainment. Hopefully ironic press-release writing aside, “Pulp Fiction” brings together fourteen Canadian artists you might not usually see in a [...]

Forming the hub of activity for the month-long CONTACT festival, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA) is showing Between Memory and History: From the Epic to the Everyday, an exhibition that mirrors this year’s festival theme. Above, one of the participants in that exhibition, Magnum photographer Alessandra Sanguinetti, talks about her work. Also participating [...]

Photo by MarkyBon. The CONTACT Photography Festival: it’s back, and it’s everywhere. Now in its twelfth year, CONTACT 2008 has over 675 artists at 220 venues from May 1–31, making it the largest photography festival in the world—an entirely believable statistic if the amount of CONTACT shows being touted on Facebook Events is any indicator. [...]