A new Visual Studies faculty member, a new Visual Studies student, and a recent graduate of the Daniels Faculty’s Master of Visual Studies program received awards from the Ontario Association of Art Galleries (OAAG) earlier this month.

The OAAG Awards are annual, province-wide, juried art gallery awards of artistic merit and excellence. They recognize the new exhibitions, publications, programs and community partnerships that have been commissioned by and produced by Ontario’s public art galleries over the previous year.

Assistant Professor Charles Stankievech — an acclaimed artist, author, and curator working in the fields of architecture, landscape, and cultural geography who joined the faculty this year — was honoured with two awards: one for the exhibition CounterIntelligence (Themetic Exhibition of the Year: Budget over $20,000), another for a major essay written for the same exhibition (Curatorial writing award).

CounterIntellegence was organized by Barbara Fischer, Executive Director/Chief Curator of the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, where the exhibition was held, and the University of Toronto Art Centre. Fisher is also a Senior Lecturer and the Director of the Master of Visual Studies program in Curatorial Studies.

The exhibition included film screenings and a project by Stankievech that contemplated “the intersection of art and military intelligence communities.” It ran at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery from January 23 - March 16.

MVS curatorial studies student cheyanne turions (pictured above), whose curatorial projects have been presented at galleries in Toronto and Vancouver, received the inaugural award for Innovation in a collections-based exhibition for Other Electricities: Works from the AGW Collection for the Art Gallery of Windsor.

“This exhibition presented a rigorous and considered pairing and contrast of modern and contemporary artworks from a range of mediums found in the Art Gallery of Windsor’s permanent collection,” read the jury notes, which tureens posted on her website. “The sensitive juxtaposition and exploration of relationships between colonial and Indigenous cultures effectively brought to light issues of sovereignty and the strategies of cultural decolonization. This entire exhibition was further enhanced by the strong curatorial essay presented in the on-line publication which will provide a lasting legacy of this provocative collections-based exhibition.”

John G. Hampton (pictured above), who recently graduated from the Daniels Faculty’s MVS Curatorial Studies program, received an OAAG award for his exhibition Coming to Terms (Thematic Exhibition of the Year: Budget under $20,000). The exhibition was produced in collaboration with the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, and was financially supported by the Jackman Humanities Institute, as part of the Instututes 2013-2014 Program for the Arts on the theme of Translation. The show brought together the work of “seven international international interdisciplinary artists working within the intersection of translation studies and artistic practice.

For more information on the OAAG awards, visit: http://oaag.org/awards/2014winners.html