As always, the breadth of awe-inspiring work at Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival is tremendous. It’s hard to know where to begin, but if there’s one show we want to draw your attention towards, it’s the stirring She Has Something to Say exhibit at Olga Korper Gallery.

The show brings together three artists: Lois Andison, Barbara Steinman, and Katherine Takpannie, and celebrates the power of women’s voices, and the many ways we can use our voices to raise awareness and advocate for equity and change.

“She Has Something To Say speaks to complex, intersectional, and ongoing feminist struggles within the contemporary cultural landscape, and highlights the critical role of artists in making them visible and inciting change,” says Curator Shelli Cassidy-McIntosh. 

Our Women and Girls Are Sacred #4, 2018, Katherine Takpannie archival pigment ink print, ed. of 5 2AP 24″ x 36″/ ed. 3 2AP 36″ x 54″

Independently, the pieces are striking, but when presented together, reveal layers of complexity to the ideas and conversations that the work inspires. 

Each of the artist messages are strong but without a doubt it’s Takpannie’s Our Women and Girls are Sacred (2016–18) series which impacted us the most. “My piece speaks to the underlying social, economic, cultural, institutional, and historical causes contributing to the ongoing violence against and associated vulnerability of Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit in Canada,” says Takpannie, whose family is originally from Apex Hill, Nunavut, but born in Montreal, describes herself as an urban Inuk. They are intensely moving images we won’t soon forget.

Olga Korper Gallery hopes to be able to open its doors later this month, so that the public can check out the impressive work up close, but in the meantime, head to their site.

View full programming for CONTACT Photography Festival here.