An offsite billboard at Queen Street West and Augusta Avenue.
Since the early 2000s, Canadian artist Jordan King has held onto a collection of Polaroids taken with friends, at nightclubs, onstage and with her circle of creative collaborators between 1999 and 2004. She found a renewed interest in the format in 2020 upon inheriting from a friend some of the personal effects of legendary 1970s–80s trans drag performer International Chrysis, who was connected to King via a New York City apartment they both at one time occupied, though three decades apart. In March 2020, King shot a series of Polaroids with long-time friend Greg Manuel in this apartment, paying homage to Chrysis and the legacy that she left behind after her untimely death in 1990. Revisiting the series for this unique installation on a billboard in Toronto, King reconsiders the intimacy and instantaneity captured by the unique photographic format, recontextualized within the public sphere.
Presented in partnership with the CONTACT Photography Festival. Supported by PATTISON Outdoor Advertising
Jordan King is a Canadian multi-disciplinary artist, curator and writer. Her practice is rooted in performance, archival research and intergenerational dialogue. She completed an MFA at OCAD University in 2024 with a focus on documentary film and multimedia documentation of underground queer performance. King spent her formative years immersed in nightlife culture, which continues to influence her work and research. Recent projects have included a curated exhibition of archival material focused on LGBTQ2S+ stage performers in the mid/late 20th Century, an oral history interview podcast series, short video works and an autobiographical cabaret performance.
