TORONTO.- – The Design Exchange, Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival and Wedge Curatorial Projects is proud to present Guy Tillim: Avenue Patrice Lumumba from April 20 to June 14, 2011.

Avenue Patrice Lumumba by South African artist Guy Tillim, examines modern history and architecture in Africa, set against the backdrop of its colonial and post-colonial roots. These poignant photographs trace Patrice Lumumba’s nationalist legacy across numerous African countries, including Mozambique, Angola and The Democratic Republic of Congo.

Patrice Lumumba was one of the first elected African leaders and became the first prime minster of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was assassinated a mere ten weeks after he spoke out against human rights violations, at a time when his country had just earned independence from Belgium in 1960. Today many African cities, streets, avenues and squares are named in his honor, representing an African dream for national unity.

Guy Tillim: Avenue Patrice Lumumba is one of the primary exhibitions in the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival. CONTACT 2011: Figure & Ground investigates the way photography mediates how we perceive, recognize and experience the rapidly changing world around us. This year’s festival explores the tensions between humanity and nature, from the figure in the landscape to the effect of human intervention on the ground.

“Photography allows us to relive the past and keep in touch with it. As an art form that captures humanity’s emotion and history’s actions, Tillim’s work is a testament to the evolving human spirit. The DX is extremely proud to be offering its home to showcase these exceptional works during CONTACT. We know they will inspire our community to expand their perception of what is possible with the lens”, said Samantha Sannella, President & CEO of the DX.

“Guy Tillim’s photographs about the history, architecture and humanity in Africa is a very powerful highlight of the festival this year”, says Darcy Killeen, Executive Director of CONTACT, “we are pleased to partner with the Design Exchange and Wedge Curatorial Projects, and grateful to the MoCP and the Lannan Foundation for their support of this important exhibition.”

"This exhibition will gain immeasurably from its installation within the Design Exchange, which is situated in an iconic modernist building, designed by Mies van der Rohe in the 1960s, coinciding with the period of rapid change in Africa", said Kenneth Montague, director of Wedge Curatorial Projects. "This setting provides a very poignant contrast with Tillim's images of buildings showing scars of neglect - an apt metaphor for a dream deferred."

Guy Tillim was born in Johannesburg in 1962. He started photographing professionally in 1986 and joined Afrapix, a collective of South African photographers with whom he worked closely until 1990. His work as a freelance photographer in South Africa for the local and foreign media included positions with Reuters between 1986 and 1988, and Agence France Presse in 1993 and 1994. Tillim has received many awards for his work including the Prix SCAM (Societe Civile des Auteurs Multimedia) Roger Pic in 2002, the Higashikawa Overseas Photographer Award (Japan) in 2003, the 2004 DaimlerChrysler Award for South African photography, the Leica Oskar Barnack Award in 2005 and the first Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography from the Peabody Museum at Harvard University in 2006. He has exhibited extensively around the globe