The Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Awards for outstanding achievement as an artist and for curatorial excellence
Dana Claxton
Award for Outstanding Achievement as an Artist
Dana Claxton works in film, video, photography, performance, multi-channel installation and curation. Her work has been exhibited and collected internationally and her films have screened in over 30 countries. "Fringing the Cube" her solo survey exhibition was at the Vancouver Art Gallery in the Fall of 2019. She is Head and Associate Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at the University of British Columbia. Her practice/praxis and life engage with the socio/comos/political, the spiritual and enchantment of the everyday. Her family reserve is Wood Mountain Lakota First Nations in beautiful Southwest Saskatchewan.
"I am grateful and honoured to received this generous award. This award will greatly assist with the exploration of new works that are yet to be shaped - I can move forward knowing that I have the neccessary means to make.... ".
Catherine Bédard
Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art
Catherine Bédard is an art historian, exhibition curator and author. She has an M.A. in Art History from the Université de Montréal, and a diploma for advanced studies (D.E.A) in History and Civilization from the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences sociales in Paris, France. During her career, she has curated an important number of exhibits and organized as many in collaboration with other curators.
In addition, she has translated the work of important historians such as Bram Kempers and Jeffrey Hamburger, and wrote the prefaces for Anachroniques and Histoires de peintures, both by Daniel Arasse. She was a juror for the Festival International du Film sur l’Art (2007), and the Scotiabank Photography Award (2014–16), and currently sits on the Patronage Committee for the Fondation des Artistes, in Paris. She has been promoting Canadian art in France, where she has developed a broad cultural network encompassing the visual arts, music and film.
“It is a great honour to receive this award from a Foundation whose values I have always admired, and it is touching to have my work, undertaken outside the country, recognized by my peers. For several years now, I have built my career around the notion that it is possible to work as a contemporary art curator within a highly diplomatic environment — in my case, the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris. As such, I am particularly grateful to the Hnatyshyn Foundation for an award based on that work."