Always Moving Forward features photo-based work by a diverse range of young African-born artists in Toronto’s Wedge Collection. Curated by Ken Montague, this exhibition highlights a generation of global artists exploring different dimensions of the African imaginary and African spaces. Living and working across Africa, North America and Europe, their work points to the reality of African diasporic identities as being fluid, constantly in flux. These are artists who have turned to lens-based practices to open up a kind of critical “third space” countering the history of Western media as a purveyor of “Afro-pessimism.” Their internationally acclaimed work also reflects the current shift away from the commercial studio portraiture that predominated in Africa in previous decades, to reveal an emphasis on conceptual art, documentary, fashion and street photography. The exhibition provides a glimpse at how emerging technologies, transitioning landscapes, rampant globalization and forces of capitalism including the influence of advertising and new media is rapidly changing the continent and people. – Pamela Edmonds