Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory Wins Sobey Art Award
Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory (photo by Chickweed Arts/Jamie Griffiths)
Inuk artist Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory is the winner of this year's Sobey Art Award.
Laakkuluk, one of five regional finalists, was named as the winner of the prestigious $100,000 prize Saturday at a gala celebration hosted by the National Gallery of Canada.
The Iqaluit-based artist asked the audience to take a moment to remember "the thousands and thousands of Indigenous children that are buried in all of the homelands all over this country" before paying tribute to her family and community.
"This is our art, it's not just me," she said. "It is my family. It is all our collaborators. It's everyone. It's all of us together. We've all done it."
Laakkuluk is a kalaaleq (Greenlandic Inuk) and her practice draws on her heritage – notably through her performance of uaajeerneq, a Greenlandic mask dance – and embraces performance, tactile creations and spoken and written word.
The other finalists, who each receive $25,000, are Gabi Dao, representing the West Coast and Yukon; Rajni Perera, Ontario; Lorna Bauer, Quebec; and Rémi Belliveau, Atlantic. Laakkuluk represents the Prairies and the North.
The award changed its criteria this year to celebrate the careers of emerging Canadian artists of all ages. Previously, it was open to emerging artists under 40.
The work of the five finalists is on display until Feb. 20 at the National Gallery of Canada.
An independent jury of curators from the five regions, as well as two international jurors, oversaw the competition. The jury was chaired by Sasha Suda, the director of the National Gallery of Canada, and included Nisk Imbeault, director of the Galerie d’art Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen at the University of Moncton; Dominique Fontaine, independent curator; Emelie Chhangur, director of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston, Ont.; Tarah Hogue, curator of Indigenous Art at the Remai Modern in Saskatoon; Joni Low, independent curator; Adriano Pedrosa, artistic director of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand; and Adam D. Weinberg, the Alice Pratt Brown director at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
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