Loft’s photos shine at festival
Large prints of Loft’s photographs hung from the ceiling at his new exhibition. Ella Paulin The Eastern Door
When the team at the daphne, an Indigenous-run art centre in Montreal, found out that the theme of the 2025 MOMENTA Contemporary Art Biennial was In Praise of the Missing Image, they knew they had to call Martin Akwiranoron Loft.
Loft has photographed Indigenous life in Montreal and Kahnawake for the last 40 years, from his first show in 1985 as a Concordia photography student to his participation in the McCord Stewart Museum’s Pounding the Pavement exhibition this summer.
His new exhibition at daphne, which runs until October 25, presents his work to the MOMENTA festival’s international network of artists and art-lovers. This fall marks the 19th edition of MOMENTA, which brings artists from all over the world together in Montreal every two years.
For Aaron Rice, a curatorial intern at daphne, it was important that Indigenous artists from Kahnawake and across Canada were represented alongside international ones.
Loft with gallery representatives and attendees at the exhibit. Ella Paulin The Eastern Door
“I believe there’s three Indigenous artists and two Inuit,” Rice told The Eastern Door at the opening last Friday. “That’s quite a big percentage, because there’s people from Colombia, there’s people from Norway and Africa, it’s a very international festival. So that’s really exciting to have that experience.”
Lori Beavis, the centre’s director, also talked about what is was like to be an Indigenous gallery participating in an international art festival, emphasizing that the centre has a standing relationship with MOMENTA that preserves their creative control over the exhibits.
“Outside of the way that the rest of MOMENTA is curated, daphne curates our own space as an Indigenous space,” Beavis said, adding that the team takes time to build a relationship with artists and guests.
“We don’t want to come into a project that’s already far ahead, and where our knowledge about Indigeneity, Indigenous art, and contemporary art is not recognized at the very beginning.”
Since daphne opened during the COVID-19 pandemic, they have tried to build a community-based art centre, with an emphasis on platforming Indigenous artists and creating a welcoming environment.
“We always stand up and we always say hello to people when they come in, because we really want everybody to feel comfortable,” Beavis said. “We always bring the artist for the exhibition, and the intention is that the artist is here, and is available, and conversations can start.”
Loft’s exhibition itself has three different parts: street photography, documentation of Orange Shirt Day marches over the last several years, and portraits of community members.
When Loft heard about the theme, he began to think about how his photographs help fill the gaps in the representation of Indigenous presence in Montreal.
“Say in Toronto, or the Prairies, or British Columbia, there’s this infrastructure that’s in place to promote and give a platform for Indigenous photography,” Loft said. “But here in Montreal, it was kind of lacking. So in a sense, I would say that my work is injecting that ‘missing image’ that hasn’t been there.”
The portraits, in particular, put community members literally front and centre, with 16 portraits displayed in a grid on the wall, and four more large prints suspended in the middle of the room. Throughout the gallery opening, attendees walking through often pointed out faces they recognized, or people they knew personally from the photographs.
One such attendee, Mandi Morgan, remarked on how moving she found the portraits.
“They’re just large enough that you can gaze straight into the spirit of each individual. I like to spend time with each portrait, and ask myself who they are, where do they come from, and where have they been.”
Loft saw the photographs at the gallery as a way to circle back on the beginning of his career, referencing his very first exhibition as a photography student.
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“I look at the portraits that I did in 1985, and then now, as kind of bookends of a chapter in my work that I started as a 25-year-old, and now I’m a 64, soon-to-be 65-year-old.”
While Loft has been snapping photos for decades, he shows no sign of slowing down. In particular, he looks forward to participating in and documenting the Orange Shirt Day marches each year.
“I plan to cover this as long as I can walk, and if I can’t walk anymore, someone can push me in a wheelchair. I hope to have many, many more years of documenting it.”
