Get an outside perspective on your work.
Photography can be a solitary practice. Portfolio reviews are a chance to step outside of that process and get an honest, fresh perspective on your work. During MSPF, you'll sit down with three photography professionals for focused one-on-one conversations about your images, your projects, and your practice. Whether you're developing a new body of work, editing a portfolio, or simply looking for another perspective, this is a space to ask questions, get feedback, and see your work differently.
About the portfolio reviews01 — BRING YOUR WORK
Bring a portfolio, a completed series, or work in progress. It can be printed photos or on a laptop/tablet, ideally.
You don't need to have everything figured out.
02 — MEET THE REVIEWERS
You'll have a 20-minute one-on-one conversation with each of our three reviewers, giving you three different perspectives on your work.
03 — TALK, LISTEN, DISCUSS
Use the time to ask questions, get feedback, talk through a project, or simply hear how someone else responds to your photographs.
How it worksmeet the reviewers
Zoë Tousignant
Zoë Tousignant is a photography historian and curator at the McCord Stewart Museum. She holds a PhD in Art History from Concordia University and an MA in Museum Studies from the University of Leeds, UK. Her research focuses on the production and reception of photographic culture in Quebec and Canada. Her curatorial projects have included close collaborations with such photographers as Serge Clément, Carlos Ferrand, Marisa Portolese, Gabor Szilasi and the members of the Disraeli collective. Her many publications include the books Gabor Szilasi: The Art World in Montreal, 1960-1980 (McCord Stewart Museum and McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019) and Pounding the Pavement: Montreal Street Photography (McCord Stewart Museum, 2025).
Photo by Roger Aziz
Curator, Photography, McCord Stewart Museum
Darren Ell
Born in Saskatchewan and living in Montreal, where he obtained his MFA in Photography at Concordia University, Darren Ell’s numerous projects explore the documentary genre through photojournalism, portraiture, landscape and video installation. Since 2002, he has frequently published and exhibited work on the plight of Palestinian refugees, the struggle for democracy in Haiti, refugees in Canada threatened with deportation, the student strike of 2012, the European refugee crisis, the life of new immigrants to Canada and the US-Mexico border. His first book, a series of portraits and interviews with new Canadians entitled Double Appartenance, was published by Éditions Cayenne in 2015. In 2025, he completed his second book, A Better Life, about family history and photography. He is currently finalizing a 10-year street photography project about the Western middle class.
Photographer
Photographer, Prix Pictet Laureate
Benoit Aquin
Benoit Aquin is a Montreal-based photojournalist and landscape photographer whose practice explores large-scale environmental issues and their impact on humanity. Over more than three decades, his work has examined subjects including climate change, desertification, agriculture, and the relationship between people and their environment. Aquin is the winner of the inaugural Prix Pictet for his series The Chinese Dust Bowl. His work has been exhibited internationally and is held in the collections of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, among others. His photographs have been featured in publications worldwide, and he has received numerous awards throughout his career, including multiple Lux awards and the Prix Antoine-Desilets.