Faded Reverie captures the fleeting power of live performance, fostering connection between artists, audiences, and the city’s diverse cultural landscape. Through her lens, Toronto-based photographer Maggz Elizabeth transforms music into shared memory—bridging divides and deepening appreciation for the performative moment.

Presented for the CONTACT Photography Festival, this exhibition joins a city-wide celebration of lens-based art, highlighting both emerging and established voices across local and international scenes.

Maggz Elizabeth (b. 1989, London, Ontario) is a self-taught photographer whose work sits at the intersection of music, atmosphere, and light. Based in Toronto since 2012, Elizabeth began her practice in 2015 after becoming captivated by how light shifted across the cityscape. This early fascination evolved into a deeper engagement with live music and performance, where she began capturing the emotional resonance of artists on stage.

Her work resists pure documentation. Instead, it offers visual recollections—frames suspended between presence and distance, energy and stillness. Elizabeth has photographed a wide range of performers, including Tyler, the Creator, Drake, Radiohead, Travis Scott, Mac Miller, Lauryn Hill, and Miguel — to name a few. 

In Faded Reverie, Elizabeth presents a body of work shaped by silence and proximity. Figures emerge from stage smoke and shadow, their identities suspended between recognition and abstraction. These images are not merely about music, but about the afterimage it leaves behind—the emotional imprint of light, sound, and shared experience.

The exhibition reflects on how we remember performance: not as a full record, but as something felt. Each photo is edited intuitively to preserve the emotional tone of the artist and the atmosphere of the crowd. The result is a quiet meditation on connection, memory, and the way performance lives on long after the lights go out.

FADED REVERIE IS PART OF ATELIER 1888: ARTIST RESIDENCY PROGRAM