The Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Awards for outstanding achievement as an artist and for curatorial excellence
Isabelle Hayeur
Award for Outstanding Achievement as an Artist
Isabelle Hayeur holds a MFA in visual arts from l'Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). She is known for her photographs and her experimental videos. She has also realized public art commissions, several site-specific video installations and photography books. Her work is situated within a critical approach to the environment, urban development and to social conditions. Since the late 1990s, she has been probing the territories she goes through to understand how our contemporary civilizations take over and fashion their environments. She is concerned about the evolution of places and communities in the neoliberal sociopolitical context we currently live in. Exhibitions include the National Gallery of Canada, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Arts, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Bruce Silverstein Gallery, Today Art Museum in Beijing and Les Rencontres internationales de la photographie à Arles. Her artworks can be found in numerous public and private collections.
"I am very grateful and honoured to receive the Mid-Career Award 2021 Visual Art Award. My art practice is in complete effervescence at the moment and this award from the Hnatyshyn Foundation will allow me to continue to build on this creative momentum."
Heather Igloliorte
Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art
Heather Igloliorte is an Inuk and Newfoundlander from Nunatsiavut, has been an independent curator for sixteen years and is a founding member of GLAM Collective. She is the lead guest curator of INUA: Inuit Nunangat Ungammuaktut Atautikkut (Inuit Moving Forward Together), the inaugural exhibition of the new Inuit art centre, Qaumajuq, which opened March 2021 at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. The exhibition is a ground-breaking survey of contemporary art from Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Her other recent projects include the permanent exhibition Ilippunga; the internationally touring co-curated exhibition Among All These Tundras; and SakKijâjuk: Art and Craft from Nunatsiavut, which won the Canadian Museums Award for Education in 2017. Igloliorte is the University Research Chair in Circumpolar Indigenous Arts at Concordia University in Tiohtiá:ke/ Montreal, where she leads the Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership SSHRC Partnership Grant and Co-Directs the Indigenous Futures Research Centre. Igloliorte is the President of the Board of the Inuit Art Foundation and also serves as the Co-Chair of the Indigenous Circle for the Winnipeg Art Gallery; on the Board of Directors for the Native North American Art Studies Association; and on the Faculty Council of the Otsego Institute for Native American Art History at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York, among others.
"I am honoured to receive this award from the Hnatyshyn Foundation, and for the recognition of its esteemed jurors. My curatorial practice aims to centre Indigenous artists, celebrate the dynamic continuity of our cultures, and share new and exciting—and often underrepresented—contemporary artists with the public. I also try to prioritize the mentorship of emerging voices and building capacity across the arts through this work, in order to contribute to Indigenous peoples' artistic and curatorial agency and excellence. As such, I feel this award also recognizes the importance of continuing to make space for emerging curators for the future. Nakummesuak ilonnasi (thank you all so much!)"