Mi'kmaw artist wins Canada's Sobey Art Award
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Rita Taylor, courtesy of Banff Centre for the Arts
Ursula Johnson incorporates her heritage into her art.
Ursula Johnson, a Nova Scotia artist, has won Canada's largest prize for contemporary art, the $50,000 Sobey Art Award.
A Mi'kmaw performance and installation artist, Johnson incorporates her heritage into her art, which challenges and explores issues of identity, traditional Indigenous culture and colonial history.
The award's selection committee praised her "strong voice, her generosity and collaborative spirit. Through her work, she redefines traditional materials and re-imagines colonized histories."
This year, for the first time in the award's history, the award list was dominated by women and Indigenous artists.
Launched in 2001 to raise the profile of rising stars in the Canadian contemporary art scene, the Sobey Award is presented annually to a working artist under the age of 40. A cross-country panel selects semi-finalists from five different regions of the country, with judges eventually shorten to five.
Whle accepting the award, Johnson first addressed the crowd in Mi'kmaq before switching to English because "nobody can understand me but my mom."
A member of Cape Breton's Eskasoni First Nation, the 37-year-old's art encompasses installation and performance, often incorporating skills learned from her elders, such as basket weaving, including weaving herself into the basket's enclosure.
