Frances Price, President of the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts, announced today the recipients of the Project Support Awards. “In 2023, the 25th anniversary of Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts, we have awarded four prizes to very interesting and worthy projects in the visual arts. We look forward to following their work as it unfolds over the next year. Many thanks to the Project Support chair, Alice Adelkind, and her committee for their time researching, interviewing, and then analyzing the final proposals from at least 14 projects. Congratulations to our award winners!”
At the conclusion of each project description below, there is a short video from the Project Support Awardee.
$10,000 to the Doris McCarthy Gallery (DMG), University of Toronto, Scarborough.
TFVA awards a 2023 Project Support Award to the Doris McCarthy Gallery (DMG), University of Toronto, Scarborough (UTSC). This coming fall, 2023, the DMG will host a solo exhibition of works by Scarborough-based artist, Erika DeFreitas, who was an TFVA Artist Prize finalist in 2016. In conjunction with the exhibition, three emerging Scarborough artists will be chosen to undergo a mentorship led by DeFreitas. The mentorship will allow artists to further their practices and show their work as part of the exhibition in ancillary spaces on the UTSC campus. The TFVA Project Support prize money will go towards the artists’ residencies; providing the funds to create new work, the preparation of an exhibition, learning the process of working with a professional gallery, and gaining insight into the process involved in being a full time practicing artist. There will be artist talks, exhibition tours, studio visits, portfolio critiques etc. The mentorship aims to foster the development of talent and resources available to emerging artists in the Scarborough region and create a thriving creative community.
CLICK HERE to listen as Sandy Saad-Smith, Curator, describes the project and the impact of the TFVA award.
CLICK HERE to visit the DMG website
$10,000 to the Inuit Art Foundation
TFVA awards a 2023 Project Support Award to the Inuit Art Foundation for Up Front – a public art project. Up Front is an ambitious public art project providing four mid-career Inuit artists with the opportunity to create new work in the form of digital vinyl murals. Four separate murals will be commissioned and hung successively on the exterior of 199 Richmond Street West (outside the Onsite Gallery) and will be visible 24/7. The artists will be mentored and supported through Onsite Gallery/OCAD. This is the first time these artists will have the opportunity to work with a University. In turn, the public art will help reshape the public’s perception of contemporary Inuit artistic practice.
CLICK HERE as Alysa Procida, Executive Director, describes the project and the impact of the TFVA Project Support Award.
CLICK HERE to visit the Inuit Art Foundation website.
$5,000 to the South Asian Visual Arts Centre (SAVAC)
TFVA awards a 2023 Project Support Award, on the 25th anniversary of the South Asian Visual Arts Centre (SAVAC), to SAVAC’s long standing film and video program entitled MONITOR. The SAVAC organization does not have a dedicated presentation space but rather partners with local and international artist-run centres, public galleries, and museums, to develop, present, fund, and/or support art by people of colour. TFVA will be supporting the catalogue design, materials and printing for the 15th edition of MONITOR. This includes the presentation of experimental short films and videos that initiate dialogue around the shifting nature of politics, economies, and landscapes across the Global South and its diasporas. The series engages with Canadian and an international community of artists, curators, and critics. MONITOR will premier in Toronto before going on tour across Canada and abroad. All iterations of MONITOR are available to watch in the research library at 401 Richmond through Vtape.
CLICK HERE to listen to the project overview from Indu Vashist, Executive Director, SAVAC
CLICK HERE to visit the SAVAC website
$5,000 to the Sur Gallery
TFVA awards a 2023 Project Support Award to assist with the Sur Gallery’s upcoming exhibition entitled, Feminist Archival Strategies. The show is both a physical curated exhibition with media art works, as well as a virtual exhibition of archival video works from the 1980’s, that help build collective memory for future generations. The new media art works are by four women from the Latin American diaspora Canada who will explore personal and cultural histories with a feminist lens. TFVA will support the showing of the works of these four contemporary artists. The show, to be held on October 5 – December 2, 2023, is accompanied by a series of online and in-person talks with the exhibiting artists and members of the community. Sur Gallery, of the Latin American-Canadian Art Projects, is dedicated to the implementation of art projects which showcase and promote contemporary Latin American and Latinx artistic practices.
CLICK HERE as Tamara Toledo, Director/Curator, describes the project and the impact of the TFVA Project Support Award.
CLICK HERE to visit the Sur Gallery website |