The Portrait Gallery of Canada has launched its first solo exhibition, a new series by Winnipeg-based Indigenous artist KC Adams. GIIYAABI OMAA NINDAYAAMIN (WE ARE STILL HERE) features 12 portraits of Indigenous children. Organized by curator Ann Davis and presented in English, French and Anishinaabemowin, the exhibition is complemented by teaching and learning bundles for school teachers. Adams, a contemporary artist of Cree, Ojibway and British descent, wanted to focus on survival through joy and hope at a time when many are mourning children being discovered buried in unmarked graves at residential schools. “My intent is that our community will acknowledge and recognize the beauty, resistance and strength of our people,” says Adams. “The survival of our languages, ceremonies and culture are direct acts of resistance to these acts of genocide. We survive through our love for our children, through the continued prayers for the generations yet to come.” View the online exhibition here.
The Canada Council for the Arts has launched Cultivate, one of five components offered through its new strategic innovation fund. Cultivate provides project grants to implement, pilot and protype innovative projects that address systemic issues and benefit the broader arts sector. To download the guidelines and application form, click here. The council will offer a series of webinars about Cultivate and the strategic innovation fund. To register, click here.
The Textile Museum of Canada is organizing an exhibition with work by Ethiopian-born artist Aïda Muluneh that draws attention to people suffering from water shortages. Presented from April 27 to Sept. 25 in Toronto, the show, Water Life, was created in the arid salt flats of Northern Ethiopia, one of the hottest and driest places on earth. The photographs look at local women and girls who live without access to clean water. Muluneh spent her childhood between Yemen and England. She settled in Calgary in 1985, where she attended high school before studying at Howard University in Washington, D.C. She was the 2007 recipient of the European Union Prize in the Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie in Mali. In 2019, she became the first black woman to co-curate the Nobel Peace Prize exhibition.
The Black Arts Centre, which supports and provides access to resources for the creation, exhibition and promotion of multidisciplinary art created by BIPOC youth, is creating a directory of Black artists in Metro Vancouver. The directory is meant to facilitate connections between artists and galleries. Interested artists can sign up by clicking this link.
The deadline for the Eldon and Anne Foote Visual Arts Prize is March 11. The prize is open to Edmonton-area artists nominated by an individual, gallery or arts organization located in the Edmonton area. Candidates may work in any visual arts medium and must have been shown in an Edmonton-area exhibition space or online exhibition during 2021. The winners will be announced in late May or early June. A $12,000 prize pool is distributed among three artists – $6,000 to the winner and $3,000 each to the runners up. Click here for information.