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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
2015 Finalist: Laurie Kang
LAURIE KANG's practice is based in photography, sculpture, video, performative collaborations and collage.
lauriekang.com
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
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
2013 Winner: Jennifer R. Sciarrino
jennsciarrino.com
still from The Darkness Between Lives, 2016 / Photo: Cheryl O'Brien
2013 Winner: Elle Flanders and Tamira Sawatzky
publicstudio.ca
Photo: Diaz Contemporary
2013 Finalist: Dara Gellman
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
That’s Why We End, parts 1 and 2, 2014 / Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid
2012 Finalist: Aleesa Cohene
aleesacohene.com
2011 Winner: Chris Curreri
chriscurreri.com
Staged fruit on the table with two clamp lights, 2015
2011 Finalist: Derek Liddington
derekliddington.com
Bee (silver and black), 2015
2011 Finalist: Josh Thorpe
joshthorpe.com
Rebuilding Toronto (Honest Ed’s), 2016
2010 Finalist: Sara Graham
citymovementca.wordpress.com
2010 Finalist: Daniel Young and Christian Giroux
cdgy.com
2009 Winner: Adam David Brown
adamdavidbrown.com
Things Fall Apart: Drawing #1, 2009
2009 Finalist: Kerri Reid
kerrireid.com
Bouncy Highrise, 2015
2009 Finalist: Jon Sasaki
jonsasaki.com
Production image from Art Fair, 2017
2008 Finalist: Diane Borsato
dianeborsato.net
The creature, 2016 / Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid
2008 Finalist: Kevin Yates
Click here to see Kevin Yates at Susan Hobbs Gallery
Perspective Floor-Wall (with Volume Hear Here lighting), 2013
2007 Winner: Karen Henderson
karenhenderson.ca
Chalk to Cheese (detail), 2016 / Photo: Don Hall
2007 Finalist: Roula Partheniou
roulapartheniou.com
Albatross Omnibus, 2011 / Photo: Toni Hafkenschied
2007 Finalist: Derek Sullivan
dereksullivan.ca
Thin Red Line, 2016
2006 Finalist: Shary Boyle
sharyboyle.com
The Things I Can’t Say To U, 2017
2006 Finalist: Kathryn Ruppert-Dazai
@kathrynruppertdazai on Instagram
Shifting Shelter, 2017 / Photo: Boja Vasic
2005 Winner: Vessna Perunovich
Vessna Perunovich's Website
The Directed Lie, 2009 (ongoing)
2005 Finalist: Paulette Phillips
paulette-phillips.ca
Radiant Yellow, 2004
2004 Finalist: Sally Späth
Dr Strangelove Dr Strangelove: dr0100-s007-01, 2003-2006
2003 Finalist: Kristan Horton
kristanhorton.com
installation at Articule Gallery in Montreal, 2008
2003 Finalist: Corinne Carlson
Glow House #1, 2001 / Photo: Mark Kelly
2002 Finalist: Kelly Mark
kellymark.com
Germaine Koh, Erratic, 2002 / Photo: Germaine Koh Studio
2002 Finalist: Germaine Koh
germainekoh.com
Dirty Pillows, 2001
2001 Finalist: Louise Lilliefeldt
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.
2014 Mercury Films
www.mercuryfilms.ca
2013 The Power Plant
www.thepowerplant.org2012 Mercer Union
www.mercerunion.org
2011 Justina M. Barnicke Gallery
www.jmbgallery.caProject 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.
2024 Part I
$10,000 to Evergreen Brickworks for the multi-media installation Dastgāh
Evergreen has invited sibling-artists Sanaz Mazinani and Mani Mazinani to Evergreen Brick Works to create Dastgāh, a multimedia installation and playable sound sculpture. The Toronto-based brother-sister artist duo will research, develop, and create the installation which will draw upon their respective artistic backgrounds to create a piece that allows visitors to indulge in an immersive experience centred around the chang, which first appears in Persian paintings and mosaics in 4000 BCE.
Charlene K Lau, Curator of Public Art at Evergreen, discusses the project.
$3,000 to Shoot for Peace
Shoot for Peace will use photography as a way to build confidence, communication, personal development, and a sense of leadership within marginalized youth in Regent Park. Ten young people will be provided with camera and film as a way to build proficiency in photography.
2024 Part II
$10,000 to the Textile Museum of Canada
TFVA’s award will fund programming activities connected with the Textile Museum’s exhibition, Secret Codes: Quilts, from and inspired by Nova Scotia’s Black Communities.
supporting the quilt-making traditions of Nova Scotia’s forty Black communities from the past centuries, the exhibition features quilts based on traditional motifs, as well as designs featuring the women’s contemporary interpretations.
Click here to learn about the project:
$5,000 to David Hartman in conjunction with the Portrait Gallery of Canada
David Hartman, a documentary filmmaker, is the recipient of a Project Support Award for the creation of a short film entitled Letitia Fraser: This is My Fabric. The film was a key interpretive element in the exhibit at Art Toronto featuring her Fraser’s work. Created in conjunction with the Portrait Gallery of Canada, the aim of the film is to bring relevance and to shift perceptions about a Canadian Black diasporic experience through the work of this young, emerging, Black female artist.
Robert Steven discusses the project and the impact of TFVA support of it.
$5,000 to Elisa Julia Gilmour for the film Aida Non Plus
Elisa Julia Gilmour, a Toronto-based, Canadian French filmmaker, is the recipient of a Project Support Award to support post- production expenses related to her short narrative film Aida Non Plus. The film, set in Corsica, France addresses the issues of migration, immigration and integration related to one woman’s return to the island. There she tries to find her place in her family, in a society and in a land that often does not feel like her own.
Filmmaker Elisa Gilmour describes the film:
$5,000 to the Black Artists’ Networks in Dialogue (BAND)
This Project Support Award is to support BAND’s programming which will accompany an installation, by the artist, writer and curator, Chiedza Pasipandodya. Pasipandodya’s research-based practice emerges from southern African ways of being, knowing, and aesthetics and is informed by African pottery. The installation, located in Garrison Common Park, will feature a wooden Granary frame, two stainless steel plates with acid etchings and two serpentine stone sculptures with engraved drawings.
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
Workman Arts
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'
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
Toronto Alternative Art Fair International
2004
Canadian Art Foundation Film Festival
Canadian Art Foundation Film Festival for Reel Artists.
2003
Contact Photography Festival
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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