In its sixth year, the Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators was set up to challenge and encourage young curators by offering entrants a chance to create an innovative exhibition. A unique prize in the Canadian art world, the Middlebrook Prize celebrates social connectedness and a shared sense of community. The winner is a curator under 30 and receives a space for their exhibition at the Art Gallery of Guelph.

Middlebrook Prize Winners

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Read expert Q&A from Middlebrook Prize Winners on a wide range of topics and connect with leading experts in their fields.

Expert Q&A from Middlebrook Prize Winners

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Middlebrook Prize - Elora Centre For The Arts

Curator Adam Barbu at University of Ottawa (Breaking Point)

In this report, Canadian Art editorial resident Natasha Chaykowski visits “KWE: Photography, sculpture, video, and performance by Rebecca Belmore” at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery in Toronto.

As Chaykowski notes in the video, the term kwe is the Anishinaabe word for woman. Notably, Belmore’s work suggests how the bodies of women, Aboriginals and artists are neglected (and sometimes even disappeared or eliminated) by the powers that be. At the same time, however, it indicates that many such bodies manage to endure as a record of violence, and of survival of violence.

Two works in particular demonstrate these themes in Belmore’s exhibition: The large print sister hung in windows in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in its original showing, and it referenced the large numbers of Aboriginal women gone missing in that neighbourhood. The sculpture Ayum-ee-aawach Oomama-mowan: Speaking to their Mother, a large megaphone which was shown outside of the gallery in Toronto and elsewhere, invited members of the public to speak directly to the land and water.

To see these works and others curated by Wanda Nanibush, watch the video.