The Art Museum at the University of Toronto took the top award at the Ontario Association of Art Galleries’ (OAAG’s) 40th Anniversary Gala. Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience, a project by Toronto-based artist of Cree descent Kent Monkman, which ran January 26 to March 5, received Exhibition of the Year. Barbara Fischer, associate professor in the Daniels Faculty’s Master of Visual Studies program in Curatorial Studies, was the exhibition’s Commissioning Curator.

“Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience is an epic and timely project that addresses and counters Canada’s 150 years of colonialism,” said the jury. “With the help of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, his time-travelling alter ego, Monkman reconfigures this history by disrupting the great Canadian narrative with painterly devices that reveal the damaging consequences of colonial occupation on indigenous people, culture and land.”

A number of other Daniels faculty and alumni were recognized by OAAG as well. Visiting Professor Luis Jacob won the award for Curatorial Art Writing: Short Text under 2,000 words, written for his exhibition Form Follows Fiction: Art and Artists in Toronto, also presented at U of T’s Art Museum.

“Form Follows Fiction: Art and Artists in Toronto, reflects the forging of Jacob’s relationship to the subject of art making in Toronto, in a manner that enables the viewer to visualize their own connection to the city,” commented the Jury. “It presents a (fifty-year) panorama of the blueprints that artists have drafted over many decades to give form to life in one of North America’s largest cities."

Daniels Faculty Assistant Professor Mitchell Akiyama was part of a team that received the Education Award for the event Why Look at Cages? An inter-disciplinary forum on human and animal captivity and questions of social control presented by U of T Mississauga’s Blackwood Gallery & Animals in the Law and Humanities Working Group. The Jury praised the innovative program for offering “opportunities for knowledge and cross-disciplinary education and interspecies engagement.”

The University of Toronto Scarborough’s Doris McCarthy Gallery’s exhibition: Heather Hart: Northern Oracle, curated by Associate professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Ann MacDonald received the Monographic exhibition of the year (Budget over $20,000).

And Recent Master of Visual Studies graduates Emelie Chhangur and cheyanne turions both received awards for Curatorial Art Writing. Chhangur for Major Text over 5,000 words; turions for text 2,000 – 5,000 words.

For more information on all 2017 OAAG award winners, visit the OAAG website.