Oct 20, 2025

Cast Your Vote for a Collective Vision

Vote now for the final work in the upcoming photography exhibition at the AGO

A black and white collage of photographs. Each photo is a portrait of different people.

Shelley Niro, Untitled, 1991. Collage: gelatin silver prints, some with applied colour, mounted to drilled board, 152.4 x 101.6 cm. Acquisition in progress. © Shelley Niro, courtesy Stephen Bulger Gallery. Photo: AGO

In 1984, for its first major exhibition of photography, the AGO relied on loans from local collectors. At the time, the Gallery did not have an official photography department.  Thanks to years of community support and advocacy, the AGO’s photography department was formally established 16 years later in 2000. Now, in 2025, the AGO Collection includes approximately 70,000 photographs.

This fall, in celebration of the department’s 25th anniversary, the AGO presents Collective Visions: Celebrating 25 Years of Photography. The exhibition highlights the breadth of the AGO’s photography collection and the people who helped build it. Organized by Sophie Hackett, the AGO’s Curator of Photography, it represents a diverse range of artists, artistic genres and approaches, subject matter, and materials.  

Collective Visions features artworks chosen by Toronto’s photography community. Structured as an “exquisite corpse”—the collaborative game popularized by the Surrealists in the 1920s—more than 90 artists, collectors, donors, curators, and scholars have each selected a photograph in response to the previous choice. Beginning with a selection by Curator Emeritus Maia-Mari Sutnik, the AGO’s first curator of photography, each selection is accompanied by responses from the participants. Artists featured include Barbara Astman, Harold Edgerton, Lee Friedlander, Gauri Gill, Candida Höfer, Peter Hujar, André Kertész, Arnaud Maggs, Robert Mapplethorpe, Katherine Mulherin, Jake Peters, Cindy Sherman, Malick Sidibé, Ming Smith, Michael Snow, Wolfgang Tillmans, Tseng Kwong Chi, Jeff Wall, and Weegee, among many others. Together, the works on view offer a rich and varied perspective on the medium of photography.

As Collective Visions prepares to open on November 7, it’s now your turn to choose the final work. Hackett has selected the penultimate work, Shelley Niro’s monumental collage Untitled (1991) (image at top), but which artwork will follow it? The choice is up to you.

Niro collaged family photographs and her own work to construct this exuberant, layered portrait of her life and community in Grand River, Six Nations. Below are three works that you can vote on in response to Niro’s work.

Jaromir Funke, Abstraction (1925-1930) 

Created solely with paper and refracted light, Abstraction showcases Funke’s skill with conjuring a new world. 

A black and white photograph made using paper, reflected light and shadows

Jaromir Funke. Abstraction, 1925-1930. Gelatin silver print, Sheet: 23.1 × 29.2 cm. Art Gallery of Ontario. Malcolmson Collection. Gift of Harry and Ann Malcolmson in partnership with a private donor, 2014. Photo © AGO. 2014/550

Kelani Abass, Scrap of Evidence, Ayajo (2021) 

Abass built this assemblage using studio portraits and objects from his family’s printing press, a meditation on time, technology, and what we inherit.  

A collage featuring black and white photographs of different people

Kelani Abass. Scrap of Evidence, Ayajo, 2021. Digital print, oil on canvas, cornerstone letterpress type, rubber block, Overall: 34.8 × 34.8 × 6 cm. Art Gallery of Ontario. Purchase, with funds from Friends of Global Africa & the Diaspora, 2022. © Kelani Abass. Photo: AGO. 2022/7085

 

Elaine Ling, Baobab #5, Mali (2015) 

Toronto-based photographer Ling rendered this ancient baobab—the “tree of generations”—in platinum’s timeless soft greys, edged with detail from her Polaroid negative.  

A black and white photograph of a tree in Mali

Elaine Ling. Baobab #5, Mali, 2015. Platinum/palladium print, Print: 45.6 × 57 cm. Art Gallery of Ontario. Anonymous gift, 2017. © Estate of Elaine Ling. Photo: AGO. 2017/68.1

Which work do you feel best responds to Niro’s work Untitled? Cast your vote at the bottom of this page.  

The work with the most votes will go on view as part of the exhibition when it opens on Friday, November 7. To see the works in person, visit the Marvin Gelber Print & Drawing Study Centre on Wednesday, November 5, during Open Door Wednesdays from 1 pm to 8 pm to view and cast a physical ballot.  

Opening November 7, Collective Visions: Celebrating 25 Years of Photography is organized by Sophie Hackett, the AGO’s Curator of Photography. The exhibition will be on view on Level 1 of the AGO in Edmond G. Odette Family Gallery (gallery 128) and Robert & Cheryl McEwen Gallery (gallery 129). 

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