Announcing the Winners of the Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Awards
July 30, 2024
Every year, The Hnatyshyn Foundation awards one visual artist and one curator at mid-career a prize for excellence in their disciplines. This year, the laureates are Curtis Talwst Santiago (artist) and Wanda Nanibush (curator).
Please join us in congratulating these laureates for their exceptional contributions to Canadian art! Read on to learn about their practices and the selection committees’ decision process.
CURTIS TALWST SANTIAGO is the recipient of The Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Excellence in Visual Arts ($30,000).
Curtis Santiago was born in the winter of 1979 to Trinidadian parents who emigrated to Alberta. Living in suburbia, his influences were his older brothers. One an athlete and motivator, who encouraged his stage performance as soon as he could sing. The other, an artist and actor who cultivated Curtis’ interest and love of art and music. Here he was in the middle of pickup trucks and hockey, learning about Basquiat and black artistry under the tutelage of his brothers. He was a nocturnal kid, never wanting to sleep and finding inspiration on the walls of his bedroom. His mom would bring home newsprint rolls from her job at the journal and put large sheets of paper up by his bed for him to draw on until he fell asleep.
On the weekends Santiago’s family’s basement was home to Saturday night Socas. Calypso and dancing transported them back to the island for a few hours of merriment. He would sneak to the top of the stairs and imbibe the music and energy. Music led his early artistry and continues to transfigure his practice. It was the vessel that propelled him to Vancouver in his early 20s. That rainy season drove him to paint away the persistent grey and prompted his boldness to knock on the door of Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun to ask him to be his mentor. A simple yes was the pathway to the genius, techniques, and authenticity inherent in Lawrence’s work. His own practice evolved to prompt his first solo show in Vancouver in 2008 and that evolution continued to expand his experience past Vancouver beyond Canada. He studied at New York Studio School and was an artist in Residence at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn then went further.
Artist in his Munich studio photographed by Constantin Mirbach. April 24, 2024.
His quest to discover his own ancestry took him to Portugal to study the Moors and African influence in art. He spent time in residence in South Africa where he learned to bead with the Beaders’ Guild and experienced a beautiful interconnectedness with local families and artists. He was also in residence at Black Rock in Senegal, further expanding his African experience. Curtis currently resides in Munich with his son and partner and has created a supportive network of world-wide galleries and collectors. His works are in the permanent collections of the National Art Gallery of Canada, Lenbachhaus-Munich, Studio Museum-Harlem, and Nevada Museum of Art, among numerous others.
WORDS FROM SANTIAGO
“It's an honor to receive this award and join the long list of esteemed laureates. To have my name with the likes of Rebecca Belmore, Stan Douglas and Janet Cardiff is a source of great pride. I mention specifically these three artists. Early on in my journey, I encountered their work at critical moments of my development, which profoundly expanded my perception of what a practice could look like.
This award reminds me to put my head down and do the work. Especially when it feels like no one is watching, I would like to dedicate this award to Monica and Frank Santiago for their countless sacrifices and brave decision to immigrate to Canada, enabling their children to pursue their dreams. I also want to express my appreciation to the curators and fellow artists for acknowledging my contribution to the dynamic Canadian artistic landscape.”
A man not in the mood for salsa, 2024. Charcoal and soft pastel on Arches Paper, 64 × 84 cm. Photo courtesy the artist and Martina Simeti.
SELECTION COMMITTEE
This year, the recipient of the mid-career artist award was selected by Tairone Bastien (Independent Curator; Assistant Professor, OCAD University), Lori Blondeau (Assistant Professor, University of Manitoba; Artist; 2021 laureate of a Governor General’s Visual and Media Arts Award), Stanley Février (Artist; Curator and Director of the Musée d'art actuel / Département des invisibles (MAADI)), Lindsey Sharman (Curator, Art Gallery of Alberta), and Scott Watson (Professor Emeritus, Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory, University of British Columbia).
Culture in the Key of Kerry, Sung by my Aunties on a Saturday afternoon, 2024. Reclaimed jewellery box, Paper, leather, plastic, wood, acrylic paint, oil paint, human hair, gold leaf, Epoxy putty. 4 x 3 x 2 1/2 in (10.6 x 7.6 x 6.3 cm). Photo courtesy the artist and Rachel Uffner Gallery.
WORDS FROM THE JURY
Lindsey Sharman described Santiago’s work as follows: “Santiago’s practice is layered, technically precise, conceptually rich and is a play of overlapping historical and contemporary narratives. The work points to difficult and uncomfortable histories and peels back layers of complex contemporary realities while finding space for joy, pleasure, play, safety and belonging. Best known for his miniature dioramas staged within antique jewelry boxes, Santiago is also an accomplished painter, drawer and incorporates these elements into immersive installation-based projects that expand on elements of the smaller works to literally bring viewers into the artist’s world. His work often seeks out ancestors. Not stymied by the unknowability of his ancestral past, he instead plays with the ways history, archaeology or museology present uncertainty with assured authority. Santiago’s work expands and collapses scale—time scales and size scales—to rework and rethink monumentality, reality, authority, and control.”
Tairone Bastien added: “Santiago's work explores cultural identity, diasporic imagination, and memory through an ever-expanding range of media. His skillful blending of personal and historical narratives with contemporary issues creates speculative worlds that challenge colonial frameworks and honour forgotten forms of knowledge. Santiago is reshaping the Canadian art landscape while asserting a powerful voice in the global conversation on art and identity. His work deserves to be celebrated and recognized at the highest levels.”
A lineup for lineups must be Friday. Always that one barber on the damn phone! Bruh, can you please finish my fade!?, 2022. Reclaimed jewellery box, Paper, leather, plastic, wood, acrylic paint, oil paint, human hair, gold leaf, Epoxy putty. 4 x 3 1/2 x 2 in (10.1 x 8.9 x 5 cm). Photo credit Holger Albrich. Courtesy the artist.
WANDA NANIBUSH is the recipient of The Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Curatorial Excellence ($20,000).
Wanda Nanibush is an Anishinaabe-kwe image and word warrior, curator and community organizer from Beausoleil First Nation, Canada. Based in Toronto, she is the founding director of aabaakwad (aabaakwad.ca), an international yearly gathering of Indigenous curators, writers and artists that last took place at Venice Biennale. She recently won the Toronto Book Award for her coauthored book Moving the Museum which chronicles some of her groundbreaking work at the Art Gallery of Ontario as the Inaugural curator of Indigenous Art. She has curated survey, group, and retrospective exhibitions including: Robert Houle Red is Beautiful (NMAI, Smithsonian, Washington); Rebecca Belmore, Facing the Monumental (2019), (Canada and the U.S) and Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971 – 1989 (AGO). She will be the Helen Frankenthaler Visiting Professor in Curating in the Ph.D. Program in Art History at CUNY in the Graduate Department of Art History in 2025. She is also part of the curatorial team for Counterpublic 2026, the triennial in St. Louis. She received her M.A. in Visual Studies from University of Toronto where she has also taught graduate courses. She is Adjunct Faculty at York University. Nanibush has published widely on Indigenous art, politics, history, feminism and sexuality.
Wanda Nanibush photographed by Nadya Kwandibens of Red Works Studio.
WORDS FROM NANIBUSH
“I am deeply honoured to receive this recognition from the Hnatyshyn Foundation and a jury of esteemed curators and artists. My work as a curator is really for artists and communities so I share this recognition with them for their transformative work. I have learned philosophy, politics, alternative embodiment, dreaming and more from artists works and curating is my way of giving back to them while sharing new ways of being with audiences. This award gives me the courage to continue.”
SELECTION COMMITTEE
This year’s selection committee was composed of Sylvette Babin (Director of Esse arts + opinions), Michael Belmore (Artist), Brandy Dahrouge (Arts Consultant), Divya Mehra (Artist; 2022 Sobey Art Award laureate), and Riva Symko (Head of Collections & Exhibitions and Curator of Canadian Art, Winnipeg Art Gallery).
Rebecca Belmore performance at MCA Montreal, 2019 curated by Wanda Nanibush. Photo by Wanda Nanibush.
WORDS FROM THE JURY
Riva Symko summarized the jury’s decision as follows: “If we're talking about curatorial work this year at all, we're talking about Wanda. If we're talking about sticking to your guns, fierceness, courage, challenging the institution, we're talking about Wanda.”
Installation view Robert Houle Red is Beautiful at the NMAI Smithsonian, Washington D.C., 2023 curated by Wanda Nanibush, tour organized by AGO.
Sylvette Babin affirmed that “this award not only highlights the quality of Wanda Nanibush's curatorial projects, but also salutes this curator's stances in favor of the representation of Indigenous peoples and the foregrounding of restorative justice.”
Divya Mehra added: “As a curator, writer, and community advocate, Wanda has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to her values. It is this kind of dedication, vision, and thoughtful work that should be uplifted and celebrated.”
Sandra Brewster, Blur 4, wall transfer, curated by Wanda Nanibush in her solo exhibition of the artist’s work (2020, AGO), Photo by Wanda Nanibush.
Short lists
For the first time in The Hnatyshyn Foundation's history, we are pleased to reveal the short list of artists and curators considered for mid-career awards.
The Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Excellence in Visual Arts
Nadia Belerique
Howie Tsui
Skeena Reece
Marigold Santos
The Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Curatorial Excellence
Jason St-Laurent
Crystal Mowry
Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre
Other news
Please note that The Foundation’s office will be closed for the month of August. Upon our return in September, we look forward to announcing the laureates of our Saunderson Prizes, Developing Artist Grants, and Joysanne Sidimus Ballet Grant, as well as the name of the artist who will participate in the DARC Indigenous Residency Program!
We sincerely thank our generous donors and supporters for their important support of our work.
