Film is the art form of our times. It has formed the background of our lives, informed visual arts practices, and formed our culture's stories, its memory. MOMENTS OF PERCEPTION is a landmark book. The first history of twentieth and early-twenty-first-century Canadian experimental filmmaking, it maps avant-garde film across the country from the 1950s to the present day, including its contradictions and complexities. Experimental film is political in its very existence, critical of the status quo by definition. In Canada, some of the country's best-known artists took up the moving image as a form of artistic expression, allowing them to explore explicitly political themes. Mike Hoolboom's exposure of the horror of AIDS, Josephine Massarella's concern for the environment, and Joyce Wieland's satiric look at US patriotism are just a few examples of work that contributed to social movements and provided a means to explore issues of race and gender and 2SLGBTQ+ and Indigenous identities. Featuring a major essay on the history of the movement by Michael Zryd and profiles of key filmmakers by Stephen Broomer and editors Jim Shedden and Barbara Sternberg, Moments of Perception offers a fresh perspective on the ever-evolving history of Canada's experimental film and moving image media arts.

AGO's collection of close to 95,000 works ranges from cutting-edge contemporary art such as Untilled (Liegender Frauenakt) by Pierre Huyghe to European masterpieces such as Peter Paul Ruben's The Massacre of the Innocents; from the vast collection by the Group of Seven to works by established and emerging Indigenous Canadian artists.Art has the ability to bridge cultures and create new ways of communicating. At its highest achievement, it gives pleasure through the act of looking and empowers us to perceive the world through a wider lens.AGO: Highlights from the Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario recognizes the remarkable collection of the AGO. Featuring more than 300 works, this book showcases the depth and diversity of the Gallery's holdings -- from Rubens's masterpiece, The Massacre of the Innocents, to Arnaud Maggs's After Nadar photographs. Each entry includes a stunning reproduction, an insightful description, and detailed archival information.Over the last decade, the AGO's world-renowned collection has grown immeasurably. Now readers have the chance to explore in print form many of these acquisitions, including photographs, First Nations objects, African art, and pieces from the Thomson Collection.