Artist presently living and working in Toronto, Canada.
Benjamin Freedman is a lens-based artist working within sculpture, video and photography. His practice often revisits and examines complex histories through extensive research and study. He is interested in photographic research as a form of pseudo archaeology where reinterpretation and disruption lead to restorative discoveries. While probing the relative truths and deceptions of photography, he purposefully adopts visual vocabularies from genres such as science fiction and horror in an effort to create expanded documentary projects. He self-published his first photography book in 2015, and has exhibited extensively across the greater Toronto area, most recently at Pumice Raft Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery, Ryerson Image Centre, 8eleven Gallery, Art Gallery of Mississauga, and Division Gallery and has shared his work internationally at the Aperture Foundation in New York City
He has participated on steering committees for the annual Toronto Art Book Fair, the SNAP! Live Auction and as an artist advisory committee member for The Patch Project, an award-winning charity that animates Toronto’s public spaces with artwork. From 2015 – 2021, Freedman was the Artistic Project Manager at the CONTACT Photography Festival, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to celebrating and fostering the art and profession of photography with an annual Festival in May and year-round programming in the CONTACT Gallery. CONTACT embraces an inclusive and accessible approach to the medium and cultivates collaborations with artists, curators, institutions and organizations. Freedman oversaw and helped develop the public installation program that positions artwork within high profile sites across the GTA. The installations activate sites spatially to challenge the ways we perceive and interact with photographs while drawing attention to the significance of art within the everyday.
CV
ben.a.freedman@gmail.com
(514) 793-1907
EDUCATION
2021-2023
Master of Design, Photography, École cantonal d’art Lausanne (Écal), Lausanne.
2009-2013
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Photography, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto.
SOLO AND TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS
Facades, Gallery 64, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, South Korea, 2023
Jake, VRAL - Milan Machinima Festival, Milan, Italy, 2023
Exquisite Corpse, Pumice Raft, Toronto, Ontario, 2020
OFORT, Ryerson Image Center, Toronto, Ontario, 2017
New Votives, 8-11 Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, 2016
Lab Notes, Art Metropole, Toronto, 2015
Art Gallery of Mississauga, Mississauga, 2014
Alliance Française Gallery, Toronto, 2013
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Grad Expo, ECAL, Lausanne, 2023
Automated Photography, Foto/Industria, Milan, 2023
Lausanne Underground Film Festival, Lausanne, 2023
MetaContraVerse, GESTURE Paris, Paris, 2022
Won Syat, Platform L, Seoul, 2022
The Final Frontier, Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto, Summer 2019
C-Magazine Art Auction, Location TBD, Toronto, Spring 2019
Workhorse Show Pony, Access Gallery, Vancouver, 2018
Photorama, Gallery TPW, Toronto, 2018
Flash Forward, Division Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, 2016
In Situ, Artscape Youngplace, Toronto, Ontario , 2016
Black Mirror, Aperture Gallery, New York, New York, 2015
Lab Notes, Art Metropole, Toronto, 2015
Art Auction, Art Gallery of Mississauga, Mississauga, 2015
SNAP! Live Auction, Toronto Reference Library, Toronto, 2014
Photorama, Gallery TPW, Toronto, 2014
89+ Marathon, SPBH, Serpentine Gallery, London, 2013
Nuit Blanche, Carlton Cinema, Toronto, 2013
Second Annual Emergent Artists Exhibition, O'Born Contemporary, Toronto, 2013
In Dreams, Studio 407, Toronto, 2012
Presidents Show, Jorgenson Hall, Toronto, 2012
Temporal Forms, I.M.A. Gallery, Toronto, 2012
Nostalgia for the Present, Forgetus Collective, Toronto, 2012
Maximum Exposure, Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, 2012
AWARDS & RESIDENCIES
Long List - New Generation Photography Award, Canadian Photography Institute, 2018
Gibraltar Point Artist Residency, 2017
Flash Forward Winner, 2016
NES Artist Residency, Skagaströnd, Iceland Nov 2014-Jan 2015
CONTACT / Alliance Française Award, 2012-2013
Dean's List, Ryerson University, 2011-2013
Snap!Star, 2012
Robert S. Gooblar Scholarship, 2011
LECTURES/TALKS
Ryerson University, Toronto, 2017
The Assembly, The Rubber Factory, New York City, 2016
Walk the Talk, artist talk with Elisa Julia Gilmour, Art Gallery of Mississauga, 2014
New Modes of Image Making (Panel Discussion), Contact Photography Festival, Beaver Hall Gallery, Toronto,
ON (With Jimmy Limit, Aaron Friend Lettner, Lili Huston-Heterich, Vanessa Runions, Felix
Kalmenson, and Sam Cotter), 2013
Nostalgia for the Present, Forgetus Collective 163 Sterling Rd. Unit 29, Toronto, ON (With Kyle Broman,
Andrea Leigh Pelletier), 2011