MAWA receives New Chapter Award for Resilience Billboard Project

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Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (MAWA) has received Canada Council New Chapter funding to exhibit the artworks of 50 contemporary Indigenous women on billboards from coast-to-coast. Entitled Resilience, this project is a response to Call to Action #79 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report: integration of “Indigenous history, heritage values, and memory practices into Canada’s national heritage and history”. Resilience is curated by Lee-Ann Martin. It will launch in June 2018 and continue throughout the summer.

In inner cities and on highways—sites from which too many women have disappeared—the presence of Indigenous women will be visible and celebrated through art. The project will be accompanied by a website with information about the artists and a map to the billboards.

“The project situates every viewer as an active participant in our national conversation about colonialism in Canada. Resilience creates space for Canadians to pause and honour the individual and cultural strength of Indigenous women in our shared history and present day,” says Lindsey Bond, Project Manager.

Ottawa-based Lee-Ann Martin, one of the most senior contemporary Indigenous curators in the country, is curating Resilience. Some of Martin’s curatorial projects include Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art in Winnipeg, Manitoba (2011) and touring exhibition The Powwow: An Art History, MacKenzie Art Gallery (2000).

The highly competitive Canada Council New Chapter program attracted over 2,000 applicants and awarded 204 grants, five of them to Manitoban organizations. MAWA is deeply honoured to be among them and the recipient of the largest New Chapter Award in Manitoba.

About this organization

For over 33 years, Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (MAWA) has provided visual arts education. MAWA gives visual artists the tools to advance their goals by providing mentorships, workshops, lectures and more. From its North Main St. storefront, MAWA works to ensure the visual arts are accessible to everyone, of all ages, backgrounds and genders. Each year, more than 5,000 people participate in MAWA programs and events. Please visit mawa.ca to learn more.

Source: Mentoring Artists for Women's Art