Maya Wilson-Sanchez.
Maya Wilson-Sanchez has won the 2020 Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators. The award was presented at a gala ceremony at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto last night.
As winner, Wilson-Sanchez—who is based in Toronto—receives an honorarium, a curatorial mentorship and an opportunity to develop and present an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Guelph.
The exhibition project Wilson-Sanchez has proposed, titled “Grounding,” engages the resource-based economies that connect Canada and South America. It includes works by artists Tsēmā Igharas of Tahltan First Nation, Ximena Garrido-Lecca of Peru and Dana Prieto of Argentina, as well as Métis artist and academic Warren Cariou. It will run at the Art Gallery of Guelph from September 17 to December 13, 2020.
“The title of the exhibition suggests both the grounding of the natural materials that are taken from the earth to create artworks while offering context about the residual effects for communities affected by mining,” said award juror and Art Gallery of Ontario associate curator of photography Julie Crooks in a release. “I look forward to seeing the project (and practice) of this emerging curator, writer, and researcher unfold.”
Other members of the jury this year included Art Gallery of Guelph curator of contemporary art Sally Frater and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, associate curator of photography Lisa Volpe.
In 2019, Wilson-Sanchez—a graduate of OCAD University—was also an editorial resident at Canadian Art; she also held a curatorial residency award at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto. Later in 2020, she will be participating in the Tate Intensive program at Tate Modern.
Founded in 2012, the Middlebrook Prize is a national prize awarded annually to a curator under 30. Other winners include Missy LeBlanc (2019), Lauren Fournier (2018) and Yasmin Nurming-Por (2017).
