A Sḵwx̱wú7mesh/Sto:lo/Hawaiian/Swiss ethnobotanist and a Cree and Métis artist have won the 2024 VIVA Awards. The Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts created these awards in 1988 for mid-career artists in B.C. who “demonstrate exceptional creative ability and commitment to the visual arts”.
One of the winners, T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss, has been educating the public about Indigenous plants and the restoration of natural spaces for decades. Her work has been exhibited at the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. She also designed the Indigenous Plant Garden at the Museum of Vancouver and is a coordinator of the Harmony Garden in Humulch’sen (Capilano Reserve).
In addition, Wyss is a filmmaker and co-author of Journey to Kaho’alawe. In 2010, she received a 2010 Mayor’s Art Award.
The Comox-born Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill’s practice addresses colonial concepts of property. Through the use of readily stored materials, she explores various aspects of capitalism, including black-market economies. A member of the BUSH Gallery Indigenous art collective, L’Hirondelle Hill’s works have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Venice Biennale, and the Vancouver Art Gallery.
VIVA Awards come with $15,000 cash prizes
“We acknowledge these two artists’ outstanding contributions as committed and visible members in the local, regional, and national art communities,” Shadbolt Foundation chair Melanie O’Brian said in a news release. “The jury additionally noted that both artists’ practices address land, politics, and economies in significant material processes.”
O’Brian is also associate director and curator of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery on UBC’s Point Grey campus. The jury members were former VIVA Award winners Charles Campbell, Laiwan, Hazel Meyer, and Samuel Roy-Bois, and Vancouver artist and arts educator Sean Alward.
Each of this year’s VIVA Award winners will receive $15,000. The Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts will honour Wyss and L’Hirondelle Hill at an awards ceremony at 6 p.m. on March 26 at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
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