About Our Awards

TFVA is an independent, non-profit organization which provides education programs for its members and supports and recognizes a wide and diverse community in the visual arts

 

Robert Houle Sandy Bay Residential School Series 2009 Oilstick on paper / photo Cedric Bomford

Artist Prize

The Artist Prize recognizes a late-emerging to early mid-career artist, whose primary practice is in the greater Toronto area, and who demonstrates exceptional talent, with an exhibition history in either solo or group exhibitions. The Artist Prize winner receives $15,000 and the finalists each receive $7,500.

2024 Winner: Couzyn van Heuvelen
Couzyn van Heuvelen is a Canadian Inuk sculptor who grounds his work in increasing the visibility of Inuit practices in public spaces and across the landscape of contemporary Canadian art. Born in Iqaluit, Nunavut, but living in Southern Ontario for most of his life, van Heuvelen’s work explores his culture, history, and identity through a mixture of materials, geographies, and personal narratives
Couzyn van Heuvelen

2024 Finalist: Isabel Okoro
Isabel Okoro was born in Lagos, Nigeria and is a visual artist currently based in Toronto. She maintains a multidisciplinary practice that includes community, commercial, and educational work that explores the interactions between the motherland and the diaspora. Okoro has coined the term normatopia to describe a space which considers the tensions between a harsh reality and a utopia.
Isabel Okoro

2024 Finalist: Shaheer Zazai
Shaheer Zazai is an Afghan-Canadian artist who works in both painting and digital media. His practice, which includes digital processes, textile work, public installation, and video, focuses on exploring and developing a cultural identity within the present geopolitical climate and diaspora. Zazai has become known for a visual digital language that uses Microsoft Word to mimic the detail and repetition involved in traditional Afghan carpet-making
Shaheer Zazai

2023 Winner: Maria Hupfield
In her practice, Maria follows leads, employing a range of materials and processes toward sculptural objects that often extend into performance, public engagement, and collaboration with other artists. She is interested in the production of shared moments that open spaces for possibility and new narratives. Hupfield is an Urban, off-reservation member of the Anishinaabek People and belongs to Wasauksing First Nation in Ontario.
Click here to view Maria's video:

2023 Finalist: Alvin Luong
Alvin's practice includes sculpture, performance, video, and photography. He merges his own background with working-class community dialogues focused on stories of land and migration. Recent work includes the mining of personal photographs from past travels to produce sculptural installations of computer-manufactured imagery that weave a dystopic narrative around the inevitable impacts of climate change.
Click here to view Alvin's video:

2023 Finalist: Alexa Hatanaka
Alexa works sculpturally through performance, cross-disciplinary, and community-based practices. Her work is grounded in sustainable processes, exploring themes related to the resilience of nature, generational knowledge, and historic processes connected to her Japanese heritage.
Click here to view Alexa's video:

2022 Winner: Ghazaleh Avarzamani
Ghazaleh Avarzamani works with a variety of media to create works that challenge structures of knowledge production and investigate human behaviours, rituals of interactivity, habit and play. Born in Tehran and based in Toronto, Avarzamani holds an MFA from Central Saint Martins, London.
ghazalehavarzamani.com

2022 Finalist: Dana Prieto
Dana Prieto is an artist and educator who uses sculpture, installation, performance, writing, and collaboration to examine intimate and collective entanglements with colonial institutions and power structures. Born in Argentina and based in Toronto, Prieto holds an MVS from the University of Toronto.
danaprieto.com

2022 Finalist: Sameer Farooq
Sameer Farooq uses sculpture, installation, photography, documentary filmmaking and writing to investigate tactics of representation and explore forms of collecting, interpreting, and display. Based in Toronto, Farooq is a Canadian artist of Pakistani and Ugandan Indian descent. He holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.
sameerfarooq.com

2021 TFVA ARTIST PRIZE AWARDS:
This year the TFVA Artist Prize Committee chose to award five Artist Prize Finalists each $5,000.

Villiphit, 2019, fibre-reinforced concrete, ceramic inlay, polystyrene foam, stainless steel hardware, 21 x 34 x 22 in

ARTIST PRIZE 2021 FINALIST: JEN AITKEN
In her sculptures and drawings, JEN AITKEN creates out of a close examination of the spaces, shapes and materials of the built environment.
jenaitken.com

One Revolution: Future courtesy of the artist

ARTIST PRIZE 2021 FINALIST: ROUZBEH AKHBARI
ROUZBEH AKHBARI creates work that sits at the intersections between storytelling, critical architecture and human geography. He uses video installation, film and literature.
rouzbehakhbari.com

Nitewaké:non (detail), 2015. Image courtesy of the artist

ARTIST PRIZE 2021 FINALIST: MELISSA GENERAL

MELISSA GENERAL'S practice is rooted in photography as she works with a combination of traditional and modern materials to create audio, video, installation and performance work.
Click here to see Melissa General at McKenzie Art

To Be Titled, 2021, oil and acrylic on loose canvas, 59 x 72.5 in

ARTIST PRIZE 2021 FINALIST: OREKA JAMES
OREKA JAMES creates work that composes worlds to animate the crossing of realms, affirming what would be considered intangible. With a practice rooted in drawing and painting, James considers the excavation of histories, present and futures while giving tribute to land and ancestral life.
orekajames.format.com

Installation photos by Yuula Benivolski. Division of Labour, Art Gallery of Burlington, 2020

ARTIST PRIZE 2021 FINALIST: SHELLIE ZHANG
Through a wide range of media, SHELLIE ZHANG explores the contexts and construction of a multicultural society by disassembling standard approaches to tradition, gender, the diaspora and popular culture.
shelliezhang.com

Malvern Archival pigment prints 2019

2020 Winner: Anique Jordan
A Toronto-based artist, writer and curator, Jordan works primarily in photography, sculpture and performance. Through extensive research and community engagement, her work combines history, myth and intuition to draw attention to existing struggles, challenge dominant narratives and offer new possibilities.
aniquejjordan.com

Advancing Colors Porcupine quills on drywall, 2019

Finalist: Vanessa Dion Fletcher
Dion Fletcher is a Lenape and Potawatomi, two-spirited indigenous artist. Her work is materially and socially driven, using porcupine quills, Wampum belts and menstrual blood to understand decolonization, disability and the physical/cultural body.
dionfletcher.com

Blueprints - Garden River Bridge (2015), blueberry ink screen print, 2015

Finalist: Lisa Myers
Myers is a member of the Beausoleil First Nation. She has a keen interest is inter-disciplinary collaboration, drawing from her experiences as an educator, curator, writer, musician and chef.
lisarosemyers.com

A SEAT ABOVE THE TABLE (WARREN MOON) 10ft black rattan peacock chair, 2018; photo courtesy the artist

2019 Winner: Esmaa Mohamoud
Esmaa works primarily in sculpture and installation. Her practice is focused on cultural constructs of Blackness and how Black bodies are navigated through contemporary spaces.
esmaamohamoud.com

Assemblage, Tau Lewis, 2018; photo courtesy the artist

Finalist: Tau Lewis
Tau is a self-taught Jamaican-Canadian sculptor. Her practice is rooted in personal and collective healing through labour and myth-making. Tau uses found and repurposed materials to build portraits that investigate black identity and agency, memory and recovery, and African diaspora.
taulewis.com

Suck Teeth; Installation Photo (Royal Ontario Museum, 2018): Peter Schnobb

Finalist: Michèle Pearson Clarke
Michèle works in photography, film, video and installation to explore personal and political connections to longing and loss. She was recently appointed Photo Laureate for the City of Toronto.
michelepearsonclarke.com

An art installation of a landscape divided into five banners

A Trace, 2016-17 / Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid

2018 Winner: Sandra Brewster
Sandra Brewster is a multidisciplinary artist whose work has been exhibited nationally and abroad, engaging themes that grapple with notions of identity, representation and memory.
sandrabrewster.com

A image of a metal structure with hanging banner of text

Where Once Stood A Bandstand for Cruising & Shelter, 2017 / Photo: Henry Chan

2018 Finalist: Hazel Meyer
Hazel Meyer is an interdisciplinary artist who works with installation, performance and text to investigate the relationships between sport, sexuality, feminism and material culture.
hazelmeyer.com

A sepia photo of a woman with raised arm standing in front of Toronto buildings

BlackGrange (series of 7), 2018

2018 Finalist: Camille Turner
Camille Turner is an explorer of race, space, home and belonging. Straddling media, social practice and performance art, her work has been seen throughout Canada and internationally.
camilleturner.com

A mixed textile art installation of a wall hanging with geometric shapes and a fishing net.

A Song for my Father , in the Tune of My Mothers, 2017 / Photo: The Art Gallery of York University

2017 Winner: Nep Sidhu
NEP SIDHU lives and works in Toronto with satellite studios and projects in India. Through the practice of continuum and study of technique, his textile, painting and sculpture provide a contemporary context to explore the sacred and divine with a focus on ceremony and adornment.
nepsidhu.com

An art installation featuring a red room with a carved figure and textile wall hangings.

2017 Finalist: Marvin Luvualu Antonio
MARVIN LUVUALU ANTONIO is a Toronto-based artist with a multidisciplinary approach to art making. His practice is instinctive, personal and performative, investigating the politics of object, place, race and body.
marvinluvualuantonio.tumblr.com

The Demonstration, MAI (Montreal), 2016 / Photo: Paul Litherland

2017 Finalist: Coco Guzman
COCO GUZMAN is a Toronto-based, queer identifying artist originally from Southern Spain. Guzman's drawings and installations tell stories of silenced histories and memories to challenge social oppression and advocate for change.
cocoriot.com

An art installation in which simple gym equipment is recreated in wood and textile.

You Can('t) and You Should(n't), 2016 / Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid

2016 Winner: vsvsvs
vsvsvs is a seven person collective based out of a warehouse in Toronto' portlands. Their members are Wallis Cheung, Ryan Clayton, Anthony Cooper, James Gardner, Stephen McLeod, Laura Simon and Miles Stemp. Formed in 2010, vsvsvs' activities encompass collective art making, a residency program, a formal exhibition space and individual studio practice.
@vsvsvs on Instagram

2016 Finalist: Erika DeFreitas
ERIKA DeFREITAS is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary conceptual artist. She explores the influence of language, loss and culture on the formation of identity through public intervention, textile-based works and performative actions that are photographed, placing an emphasis on process, gesture and documentation.
erikadefreitas.com

An image of a woman kneeling over an arrangement of purple and pink pastel garments.

2016 Finalist: Bridget Moser
BRIDGET MOSER is a Toronto-based performance and video artist whose work is suspended between prop comedy, experimental theatre, performance art, absurd literature, existential anxiety and intuitive dance.
bridgetmoser.com

A collage of small images and thin lines with the feet and bottom of a figure appearing to float in the centre.

On Sleep Stones / Photo: Grazer Kunstverein

2015 Winner: Nadia Belerique
NADIA BELERIQUE constructs installations that engage with the poetics of perception and asks how images perform in contemporary culture.
nadiabelerique.com

An art installation featuring four brown textured hangin panels.

2015 Finalist: Laurie Kang
LAURIE KANG's practice is based in photography, sculpture, video, performative collaborations and collage.
lauriekang.com

An abstract painting with colored strokes on a dark green and white background.

2015 Finalist: Niall McClelland
NIALL MCCLELLAND's work draws heavily on the symbolic languages of punk subcultures, as well as the iconography of protest and street aesthetics.
@niall_mcclelland on Instagram

An art installation featuring three metal sculptures in a white room.

Those Who Feed Birds, 2017

2014 Winner: Georgia Dickie

georgiadickie.com

Five rows of small clocks all lined up on a white wall.

2014 Finalist: Ken Nicol
KEN NICOL'S practice is very focused on the present and captures the desperation we feel at one moment or another about the imprint we make on the world over a day or a lifetime.
k-nicol.com

An art installation featuring a white banner with green lines and spirals.

2013 Winner: Jennifer R. Sciarrino

jennsciarrino.com

A wood room opening onto an image of a black and white landscape.

still from The Darkness Between Lives, 2016 / Photo: Cheryl O'Brien

2013 Winner: Elle Flanders and Tamira Sawatzky

publicstudio.ca

Art installation featuring four metal discs on a black background

Photo: Diaz Contemporary

2013 Finalist: Dara Gellman

Art featuring a riot of colours and shapes in a tessellation.

Our Desires Fail Us, Collaboration with JP King, 2018

2012 Winner: Sean Martindale

seanmartindale.com

Abbas Akhavan, Study for a Monument, 2013–2016. Cast bronze and cotton sheets. Dimensions variable. Installation view: variations on a garden, Mercer Union, Toronto, 2015. Courtesy the artist and Catriona Jeffries Gallery. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid

2012 Finalist: Abbas Akhavan
Abbas is an Iranian, Toronto-based artist, with a history of international site-specific instillations. He is very concerned with "Place" and more recently with extinction and climate change relating to both plant and animal life.
abbasakhavan.com

An art installation featuring a white room with two flat screen televisions hung in front of chairs.

That’s Why We End, parts 1 and 2, 2014 / Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid

2012 Finalist: Aleesa Cohene

aleesacohene.com

Art featuring snakes and chunks of grey clay.

2011 Winner: Chris Curreri

chriscurreri.com

A photo of an artwork with black and grey strokes in a rectangular shape on a beige background.

Staged fruit on the table with two clamp lights, 2015

2011 Finalist: Derek Liddington

derekliddington.com

Anegative transfer of flowers and leaves on a white background.

Bee (silver and black), 2015

2011 Finalist: Josh Thorpe

joshthorpe.com

A group of people standing in a river with a small burning pyre in the centre.

Restaurant The River, 2015

2010 Winner: Dean Baldwin

deanbaldwin.ca

A composition assembling various houses and other structures on a white background with a Canadian flagpole in the centre.

Rebuilding Toronto (Honest Ed’s), 2016

2010 Finalist: Sara Graham

citymovementca.wordpress.com

An art installation featuring a metal rectangular structure holding sheets of thick plastic.

2010 Finalist: Daniel Young and Christian Giroux

cdgy.com

An art installation with a chalkboard hanging on a white wall. The chalkboard is filled with partially erased formulas except for a single clean circle in the centre.

2009 Winner: Adam David Brown

adamdavidbrown.com

Artwork featuring what appear to be grey outlined broken shards and crumbles on a white background.

Things Fall Apart: Drawing #1, 2009

2009 Finalist: Kerri Reid

kerrireid.com

An art installation with two scissor lifts on either side of a pile of stacked bouncy castles.

Bouncy Highrise, 2015

2009 Finalist: Jon Sasaki

jonsasaki.com

An art installation in a white room with a small structure in the centre. You can see people behind one semi-transparent wall of the structure.

Weave, 2018

2008 Winner: Yam Lau

yamlau.com

An image of a person standing in front of a large hanging headshot with cameras standing in the foreground.

Production image from Art Fair, 2017

2008 Finalist: Diane Borsato

dianeborsato.net

Two brown dressers with a metal piece holding on on top of the other.

The creature, 2016 / Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid

An art installation with a wood floored room and a wall that reflects back the wood flooring.

Perspective Floor-Wall (with Volume Hear Here lighting), 2013

2007 Winner: Karen Henderson

karenhenderson.ca

An art installation featuring an assemblage of small household and other items on a white table.

Chalk to Cheese (detail), 2016 / Photo: Don Hall

2007 Finalist: Roula Partheniou

roulapartheniou.com

An art installation featuring hanging books and two blue rollings stairs with a person standing on one.

Albatross Omnibus, 2011 / Photo: Toni Hafkenschied

2007 Finalist: Derek Sullivan

dereksullivan.ca

Minature bomb atop coin dispenser.

Bomb Ride, 2008

2006 Winner: Anitra Hamilton

Click here to see Anitra Hamilton at B#side Gallery

A ceramic spider with a woman's upper body standing on a grey backdrop.

Thin Red Line, 2016

2006 Finalist: Shary Boyle

sharyboyle.com

A beige woven textile strip on a white background.

The Things I Can’t Say To U, 2017

2006 Finalist: Kathryn Ruppert-Dazai

@kathrynruppertdazai on Instagram

An art installation featuring slim black poles to create the outline of a house-like structure. Black household furniture hangs from and is scattered around the installation.

Shifting Shelter, 2017 / Photo: Boja Vasic

2005 Winner: Vessna Perunovich

Vessna Perunovich's Website

A man's arm is strapped to a lie detector in front of a hotel bed with lie detector embroidered onto the blanket.

The Directed Lie, 2009 (ongoing)

2005 Finalist: Paulette Phillips

paulette-phillips.ca

An abstract artwork with painted strokes that resemble woodchips.

Debris Field, 2013

2004 Winner: Mark Bell

markcroftonbell.com

An image of a textured white wall with a pale yellow stripe running down the centre.

Radiant Yellow, 2004

2004 Finalist: Sally Späth

A group of people standing in front of a wall featuring a black and white image of people and art easels.

video still from Alex and Us, 2017

2003 Winner: Gwen Macgregor

gwenmacgregor.com

A black and white photo of a room with two beds and a woman in underwear and heels lying face down on a bed.

Dr Strangelove Dr Strangelove: dr0100-s007-01, 2003-2006

2003 Finalist: Kristan Horton

kristanhorton.com

An art installation featuring a series of two walls filled with square tiles with circles of colour in the centre of each.

installation at Articule Gallery in Montreal, 2008

2003 Finalist: Corinne Carlson

A photo of an outdoor art installation of metal poles with metal cymbols on top. A blue sky is in the background.

Anemones, 2016

2002 Winner: John Dickson

johndickson.ca

Two images of a different views of a house with blue windows next to each other.

Glow House #1, 2001 / Photo: Mark Kelly

2002 Finalist: Kelly Mark

kellymark.com

Two men with safety vests pushing a rock in a crosswalk. Passersby look on.

Germaine Koh, Erratic, 2002 / Photo: Germaine Koh Studio

2002 Finalist: Germaine Koh

germainekoh.com

A man kneels behind a glass panel. He is working on embroidering a large art installation that repeats the text

So Worth It!, 2017

2001 Winner: Jay Wilson

jaywilsonart.com

An image of a woman standing on the edge of a structure.

Dirty Pillows, 2001

2001 Finalist: Louise Lilliefeldt

A standing sculpture of a bird-like foot in grey with black and white talons.

Clay/Neon, 2016

2001 Finalist: David Armstrong-Six

Founders Achievement Award

The Founders Achievement Award of $15,000 acknowledges a person or organization that has, over time, made an exceptional contribution to the visual arts community in the GTA. A high level of accomplishment and achievement is recognized by the contribution on either a local level by positioning Toronto in a national or international context.

Founders
Award

Founders Awards were accorded between 2011 and 2014; after this date the award was merged with the Founders Achievement Award.

Project Support

Project Support Awards provide seed money for highly original projects that will make a significant contribution to the visual arts community. Also included in the criteria are creativity, excellence and accessibility to the public.

2023

Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto, Scarborough

This coming fall, 2023, the DMG will host a solo exhibition of works by 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.
Sandy Saad-Smith, curator, describes the project

Inuit Art Foundation

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).
Alysa Procida, executive director, describes the project

South Asian Visual Arts Centre (SAVAC)

TFVA will be supporting the catalogue design, materials and printing for the 15th edition of MONITOR, SAVAC’s long standing film and video program. 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.
Indu Vashist, executive director, describes the project

Sur Gallery

TFVA will support 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.
Tamara Toledo, director/curator, describes the project

2022

Onsite Gallery at OCAD U

With the help of the Project Support Award, the Onsite Gallery at OCAD U will transfer the handwritten records of the items in its permanent collection to a new database that will eventually be available to scholars and the general public. The permanent collection includes over 8,000 works from Canadian and international artists dating from the 1880s to present.
Onsite Gallery

2022 (Continued)

Toronto Sculpture Garden website

The Project Support Award will assist in creating an archival website for the TSG. The works of hundreds of artists from 1982– 2014 will be curated, described and documented by Rina Greer. Through temporary exhibitions, educational events and direct access to artists, the TSG has fostered familiarity with and understanding of contemporary art and provided a unique space for artists.
Toronto Sculpture Garden

the plumb

The Project Support Award will assist the plumb to install a lightbox in the alleyway outside the gallery space, in a position that provides significant space for display. the plumb is an artist-run project focussing on emerging and culturally diverse artists and curators.
the plumb gallery

Tangled Art + Disability Gallery

The TFVA prize will support Curator-in-Residence, Max Ferguson, to mount an exhibition tentatively titled Curation as Care that will explore ways to support disabled artists in a world that is hostile to disability. The Tangled Art + Disability Gallery dedicates itself to the enhancement opportunities for artists with disabilities and promotes a world that honours access, disability and difference.
Tangled Art + Disability Gallery

Workman Arts

Workman Arts has been given the Project Support Award to assist with the 21st annual Being Scene exhibition that showcases over 100 works by artists living with mental health and/or addiction challenges. The exhibition will run until May 31, 2022 with both virtual and in-person viewing options. Workman Arts is the longest running multi-disciplinary arts and mental health organization in North America.
Workman Arts

2021

STEPS Public Art for Yue Moon: Animated Light: A Community-Based, Public Art Digital Exhibition

This collaborative art-making project led to an outdoor installa-tion in the heart of Chinatown as part of 2021 Lunar New Year celebrations. A series of workshops led by lead artist Winnie Tru-ong and emerging-artist mentee Meegan Lim, resulted in a col-lective animation piece which was digitally projected and high-lighted onto a street-facing wall of the Chinese Gospel Church. It highlighted personal, cultural and historical themes tied to the Lunar New Year. STEPS develops one-of-a-kind community en-gaged installations, and public art plans that foster vibrant com-munities.

Mercer Union: a centre for contemporary art to create and enhance a strong, online presence for all aspects of Erdem Tasdelen’s commissioned exhibition, A Minaret for the General’s Wife

Mercer Union was able to support virtual engagements with Er-dem’s exhibition in order that viewers could experience its ten-sions of displacement, appropriation and extractivism.

Nia Centre for the Arts as they transform their 14,000 s.f. facility into Canada's first multidisciplinary Black arts centre

Photographer William Ukoh has been commissioned to produce a large-scale public art piece to be installed on the construc-tion hoarding directly outside the building at 524 Oakwood Ave-nue from April 2021 to late 2022. William's work will both extend conversations on the value of Black arts spaces, and add to con-versations surrounding the Black Canadian experience.

Inspirations Studio for the purchase of a pottery wheel

Inspirations Studio is a ceramics-based program meant to im-prove the lives for marginalized women who have been impacted by poverty, homelessness, physical and mental health and/or addictions.Through creative,therapeutic and skill building work, women gain a sense of self-confidence, dignity and stability.

2021 (Cont.)

Still Max a film by Site Media

Katherine Knight, film-maker creates a film based on artist Max Dean’s experience following his diagnosis of prostate cancer. Max is inspired to begin a new and all-consuming creative pro-ject that offers an unconventional first-hand account of a disease that affects one in six men. In Still Max, the artist enlists a team of discarded figures from a decommissioned amusement ride to help him negotiate his diagnosis. The question, “how do we fix ourselves?” is central to this emotional humanist portrait of crea-tivity, resilience, hope, art and cancer.

2020

The Toronto Biennial of Art

Support was awarded to the Toronto Biennial of Art (TBA) in the inaugural year of its three month, artist-centred, city-wide, multi-disciplinary arts project. Its principal locales were along the Toronto shoreline, and its curatorial framework informed by Indigenous history as well as recent settler, immigrant and refugee histories.
Toronto Biennial of Art

Evergreen Brick Works for Rita Letendre's Sunrise Mural

An award was given to The Don River Valley Art Program to support a reproduction of Sunrise, a work by noted Indigenous Artist Rita Letendre, to be installed at Evergreen Brick Works. The original Sunrise exists at Ryerson University but is currently obscured.
Evergreen Brick Works

Community of Images: Strategies of Appropriation in Canadian Art, 1977 - 1990, by Art + Research initiatives Toronto

Support was awarded to YYZ Publishing to support the inclusion of high quality colour images in its publication Community of Images: Strategies of Appropriation in Canadian Art, 1977 – 1990 by Art + Research initiatives Toronto, an important academic resource for teaching and research.

2019

The Bentway and the co-directors Ilana Altman and David Carey

Project Support was awarded for for New Monuments for New Cities. As part of the Bentway contribution to the High Line Network Joint Art Initiative for the reuse of city infrastructure. Five artists from Toronto, Susan Blight, Coco Guzman, Life of a Craphead, An Te liu and Quentin VerCetty will join another twenty artists from New York City, Chicago, Austin and Houston Texas and see their work shown in each of the five cities in the months to come.
New Monuments for New Cities

Barbara Edwards Contemporary Gallery and Mark Cheetham

The exhibition Ecologies of Landscape allowed nine artists to present their conception of the land and challenge the viewer to experience landscape in new and different ways.
Barbara Edwards Contemporary: Ecologies of Landscape

Trinity Square Video and Mitchell Akiyama

Support was provided for the exhibition Everyonce. It is intended to bring people together to discuss the ways sound affects one’s life and to propose alternative modes of engaging with sonic practices.
Trinity Square Video: Everyonce by Mitchell Akiyama

Public Studio, the collective practice of Elle Flanders and Tamira Sawatzky

Public Studio received Project Support for Unsettled, an artist book project about their 57 day journey along the Bruce Trail.
Public Studio

2018

The Bentway

Project Support was provided to the Bentway to support “Shadow", an installation by PUBLIC VISUALIZATOIN STUDIO for the inaugural winter season of this skating trail under Toronto's Gardiner Expressway.
www.thebentway.ca

Mercer Union

Project Support was provided to Mercer Union to support the inaugural exhibition by Director of Exhibitions and Programs Julia Paoli, a collaboration with RAGGA NYC and local queer Caribbean artists.
www.mercerunion.org

Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto

Project Support was provided to MOCA Toronto for "When My Drums Come Knocking They Watch", a new work under the direction of NEP SIDHU to be part of the Museum's opening exhibition. https://museumofcontemporaryart.ca
www.nepsidhu.com

Whippersnapper Gallery

Project Support was provided to Whippersnapper Gallery, which over its 15 years, has assisted artists with resources and forging community, for the video screening component of 2018 projects with The Black Artist / Union.
www.whippersnapper.ca

2017

Akin Projects

AKIN PROJECTS for CAMH Youth Addiction & Concurrent Disorders Program. This project will provide 12 patient workshops with the artists, artist assistants and materials to patients in this program who need encouragement to learn to express themselves creatively.
www.akincollective.com

Art Gallery of York University

GALLERY OF YORK UNIVERSITY (AGYU)'S director Philip Monk and curator Emile Changur curated the exhibition "Migrating the Margins". This exhibition and publication look at the condition of artist production reflecting the vast changes as a result of immigration and suburban living.
www.theAGYUisOUTThere.org

Gallery 8eleven

GALLERY 8eleven is an artist-run gallery committed to showing emerging and mid-career artists. Two exhibitions, "She Makes Two From One and One", the work of SHANNON GARDEN-SMITH and EMILY SMITDICKS, and 'Migration", the work of JEROME HAVRE are supported by the award.
www.8eleven.org

Brett Despotovich

BRETT DESPOTOVICH, created and produced Channel 2, a five-night, three hour performances of music, video art, guests and discussions in January 2017.
www.despotovitch.com

2016

VTape

TFVA support will assist in the ambitious renovation of the fourth floor space at 401 Richmond St. to create a 7400 sq. ft. climate controlled, barrier-free arts space. At its heart will be a newly built Media-Arts Research and Exhibition common.
www.vtape.org

"Showroom"

Support was given to "Showroom", the inaugural exhibition at the newly named Art Museum at the University of Toronto, curated by Sarah Robayo Sheridan.
https://artmuseum.utoronto.ca

Chroma Lives

"Chroma Lives" was an exhibition and research project by researcher Erin Alexa Freedman and artist Lili Huston-Herterich, creating a "living archive" of the 1983 exhibition "Chromaliving". Calling attention to the individuals behind the furnishings of "Chromaliving" and the subsequent generations of artists who work(ed) in this vein
www.chromalives.ca

Fade Resistant

ZUN LEE, a photographic artist, was awarded for his exhibition "Fade Resistance", a collection of thousands of Polaroid photographs depicting vibrant black family life. Lee is working toward an interactive digital archive of these photographs
www.zunlee.com

2015

The Art Canada Institute

The ACI is a non-profit bilingual educational organization, founded by Sara Angel in 2013, which creates authoritative and digitally accessible content on Canadian art history, available for free in both English and French for an international audience of thousands. This award enabled the ACI to create and publish the online art book "Joyce Weiland: Life & Work" by Dr. Joanne Sloan.
www.aci-iac.ca

Kate Addleman-Frankel

Kate Addleman-Frankel was the curator of the featured exhibition of the 2015 ScotiaBank Contact photography Festival "Bright Lights Dark City" which explains the history of the Niagara Custom Lab, the last lab that processes celluloid film for artists.
www.niagaracustomlab.com

2014

Art Metropole

ART METROPOLE 's award was to contribute to their exciting opportunity to establish an auxiliary exhibition, event and retail space during construction of the newly refurbished Union Station with the generous support of Osmington Inc. Art Metropole, a non-profit organization, founded by General Idea in 1974, continues to serve local and international art communities with a focus on artist-initiated publications in any media.
www.artmetropole.com

2013

Sitemedia Inc

Sitemedia received support for their film "Spring and Arnaud".
www.sitemedia.ca

2012

Koffler Centre for the Arts


www.kofflerarts.org

60 Painters Collective


www.60painters.com

Workman Arts


www.workmanarts.com

2011

University of Toronto Art Centre (UTAC)

University of Toronto Art Centre (UTAC) now known as The Art Museum at the University of Toronto, received support for SUZY LAKE'S "Political Poetics"
www.suzylake.ca

Tasman Richardson

TASMAN RICHARDSON received support for the project "Necropolis"
www.tasmanrichardson.com

2010

Open Studio for 'Printopolis'


www.openstudio.ca

2009

Barbara Fischer

Barbara Fischer received project support to curate MARK LEWIS' "Cold Morning".
www.artmuseum.utoronto.ca

Rhonda Corvese

Project support was given to Rhonda Corvese to curate the show "Remains To Be Seen".

2008

TFVA 10th Anniversary Scholarships

Four graduates, one each from OCAD University, Faculty of Design; Ryerson University, School of Image Arts; University of Toronto, School of Architecture, Landscape & Design; and York University, Faculty of Fine Arts received a $5000 scholarship.

2007

Art Gallery of York University

Art Gallery of York University (AGYU) published a catalogue accompanying the exhibition "Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove" by KRISTAN HORTON.
www.kristanhorton.com

2006

Max Dean for "Robotic Chair"


Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art

Bill Kirby at The Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art received project support while residing in Toronto for developing the online CCCA Canadian Art Database/Base de Données sur l'art Canadien CACC.
http://ccca.concordia.ca

2005

Isaacs Seen

Support for catalog "Isaacs seen : 50 years on the art front, a gallery scrapbook" compiled by Donnalu Wigmore

Gallery 44 & YYZ Books

www.gallery44.org
www.yyzartistsoutlet.org

Toronto Alternative Art Fair International


2004

Canadian Art Foundation Film Festival

Canadian Art Foundation Film Festival for Reel Artists.

2003

Contact Photography Festival


www.scotiabankcontactphoto.com

2001

Janet Cardiff & Georges Bures-Miller

JANET CARDIFF and GEORGES BURES-MILLER for "The Paradise Institute" at the Venice Biennale.
www.cardiffmiller.co

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