Guided Exhibition Tour | Two Generations of Photography

Guided Tour with Stephen Bulger, Sophie Hackett, and Laura Jones: Saturday, March 9, 3pm 

Exhibition curator Stephen Bulger will be joined by Sophie Hackett, Curator, Photography, at the Art Gallery of Ontario and Laura Jones for a talk exploring the exhibition “Two Generations of Photography”. The exhibition brings together the work of Minna Keene and Violet Keene Perinchief for the first time since the exhibition “REDISCOVERY, Canadian Women Photographers 1841-1941”, curated by Laura Jones in 1984.

Sophie Hackett is the Curator, Photography, at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and adjunct faculty in Ryerson University’s master’s program in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management. Hackett’s curatorial projects during her tenure at the AGO include Barbara Kruger: Untitled (It) (2010); Songs of the Future: Canadian Industrial Photographs, 1858 to Today (2011); Max Dean: Album, A Public Project (2012); What It Means To be Seen: Photography and Queer Visibility and Fan the Flames: Queer Positions in Photography (2014); Introducing Suzy Lake (2014); and Outsiders: American Photography and Film, 1950s–1980s (2016). She continues to write for art magazines, international journals, artist monographs and exhibition catalogues. In 2017, she was a Fellow with the Center for Curatorial Leadership. Hackett is the co-curator of the exhibition Anthropocene, the latest project by collaborators Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier that opened in fall 2018 at the AGO and the National Gallery of Canada, and will tour internationally.

At age 19, Laura Jones and her then husband, John Phillips, arrived in Toronto from the states. Their first jobs in 1967 were to use photography as a tool to help learning disabled children. Their photographs were the first exhibition of the Baldwin St. Gallery of Photography. For the past 50 years, photography has remained one of Laura’s primary interests. Today her photographs are in the permanent collection of the National African American Museum of History and Culture in Washington, D.C. A selection is currently on display at the Smithsonian’s American History Museum in Washington and the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. Laura enjoys involvement in the Toronto Arts & Letters Club as an exhibitor, participant, and host of photography events; in the Photographic Historical Society of Canada as a photo history devotee; and in the Canadian Senior Artists’ Resource Network (C-SARN) as a former (contemporary) photography mentor and current participant in the C-SARN Salon.  

Stephen Bulger opened his gallery in 1995 at 700 Queen Street West; moving to 1026 Queen West in 2004; then to its current location at 1356 Dundas Street West in 2017. Since that time, he has curated over 150 exhibitions; been the representative for numerous Canadian and international photographers; published catalogues and books; participated in many North American and European art fairs; was twice elected President of the Board for the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD), Washington, D.C; served two terms on the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board; and served as a Founding member and a Chair of the Advisory Board for Ryerson Image Centre. He is also the instigator and a co-founder of CONTACT, Toronto’s photography festival.