Governor General’s Awards in Media and Visual Arts 2024 exhibition opens today

November 14, 2024

From November 15, 2024, until March 23, 2025, the works of the eight winners of the 2024 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts (GGArts) will be on display at the National Gallery of Canada (NGC). This is the sixteenth edition of the annual exhibition at the Gallery, organized in collaboration with the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA). The Awards, created in 1999 by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Governor General of Canada, are the most prestigious distinctions for artistic merit and outstanding contribution to the visual and media arts in Canada.

“We are pleased to be presenting the works of this year’s winners of the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts with the Canada Council for the Arts. For a third year running, it has become a new tradition at the Gallery to offer a dynamic experience by creating dialogues between the creations of the eight artists and those in our collection,” said Jean-François Bélisle, Director and CEO, NGC. “The five curators involved in the exhibition have displayed them in ways that create renewed and original interpretations of our historical and contemporary collections while concurrently celebrating the winners’ incredible achievements.”

“The Canada Council for the Arts is thrilled to celebrate the winners of the 2024 GGArts awards through its ongoing partnership with the National Gallery of Canada. Each of the eight winners of this year’s prize is a visionary in their own right,” added Michelle Chawla, Director and CEO, Canada Council for the Arts. “With unique, evocative and bold views of the world, these artists and arts professionals challenge and inspire audiences to reimagine what is possible.”

Located across the NGC’s Indigenous and Canadian Art, Contemporary Art, and European Art galleries, as well as in the NGC Library and Archives:

Louise Lemieux Bérubé (Montréal, QC) a fine craft artist and winner of the Saidye Bronfman Award, working with textile and printing techniques. I Dream of Being a Tree, 2021, illustrates her relationships with trees and the importance of community while Snowy Trees, 2008, represents the whiteness of winters in the province of Quebec. Curated by Jasmine Inglis, Assistant Curator, Contemporary Art and Photographs, NGC.

Michelle Jacques (Saskatoon, SK), a visual arts curator and winner of the Outstanding Contribution Award working to create new points of entry to the museum space. Various publications she contributed to are presented in Library and Archives, including Anna Banana: 45 Years of Fooling Around with A. Banana, 2015, and Moving the Museum: Indigenous & Canadian Art at the AGO, 2021. Curated by Andrea Kunard, exhibition Lead Curator and Senior Curator, Photographs Collection, NGC.

Shuvinai Ashoona (Kinngait, NU), a visual artist recognized for having challenged and revolutionized the public perception of Inuit art during her two-decades-long career. In the multilayered print Quilt of Dreams, 2009, she expresses Inuit past, present and futures by sewing together contemporary and intergenerational images of Inuit lives. Tribute, 2009, features the written names of community members and artists to highlight their importance within Inuit art history. Curated by Jocelyn Piirainen, Associate Curator, Indigenous Ways and Decolonization, NGC.

Barbara Astman (Toronto, ON), a visual artist working with drawing, painting, sculpture/installation, photography and beyond, recognized for the experimental and interdisciplinary nature of her practice. In Woven Stories, 2023, she explores society’s overproduction and overconsumption of media by reworking images and weaving them in a grid pattern. Curated by Andrea Kunard.

Marjorie Beaucage (Duck Lake, SK), a creative documentary filmmaker, ‘art-ivist’ and educator who has dedicated her life’s work to creating social change by harnessing the power of art as ‘medicine’. A selection of three films includes Rougarou, 2014, #Hope, 2022, and Idle No More Midtown Mall, 2013, where she gives voice to those often unheard and addresses topics often overlooked. Curated by Jocelyn Piirainen.

Dominique Blain (Montréal, QC), a visual artist whose practice of over 40 years speaks to topics close to the human fate and whose work focuses on a questioning of the political. In the silent video installation Drift, 2019-2022, using 5 LED screens that show an apparently calm ocean, she commemorates the precarious and perilous journeys of migrants. Curated by Andrea Kunard.

Don Ritter (Montréal, QC), a visual, sound and media artist whose works of art merge aesthetics, ethics and digital media into architectural projections, immersive video-sound installations, performances, animations and silkscreen prints. Exploring mass media culture, morality and sustainability, Unnecessary Signage, 2015-, Sustained Signage, 2016, and Human Humans, 2020, address a range of topics—from the human condition to climate change, and the tragic costs of war and labour exploitation.  Curated by Stephanie Burdzy, Assistant Curator, Contemporary Art, NGC.

Greg Staats (Toronto, ON), a lens-based visual artist working in photography, video and installation whose work is inspired by his Kanien’kehá:ka [Mohawk] identity. Pine stretched towards a clearing, 2024, is inspired by the language embodied in wampum and informed by a Haudenosaunee worldview. Curated by Wahsontiio Cross, Associate Curator, Indigenous Ways and Decolonization, NGC.

For more information and a map of where each work is featured within the Gallery, please see here.

Community programming developed by the winners

For a second year, the NGC is partnering with the CCA to bring these artists to Canadians across the country through community programming developed by the winners. More details to come. Visit gallery.ca.

-30-

For media inquiries, please contact:

Pénélope Carreau
Officer, Public Relations
National Gallery of Canada
pcarreau@gallery.ca

Josée-Britanie Mallet
Senior Officer, Media and Public Relations
National Gallery of Canada
bmallet@gallery.ca

NT5