Ottawa, June 30, 2022
Celebrate 2022’s CMA Award Winners
The winners of the 2022 CMA Awards have been announced! This year’s laureates shine a light on notable achievements within our community, inspiring us all with their dedication, vision, and hard work. Please join us in congratulating them and celebrating their success.
More information will be released later this Summer in the next issue of Muse Magazine.
Here are this year’s winners:
Award for Outstanding Achievement: Exhibitions
Winner: Wanuskewin Heritage Park Authority — Wanuskewin Interpretive Centre
The Wanuskewin Interpretive Centre renewed its interior exhibit area as part of a $40M expansion project. Concept for the space were developed through workshops with Elders and focused on the importance of connection to the land, passing on knowledge to the children and demonstrating the deep and enduring relationship between the people of the plains and the bison.
Winner: A Seat at the Table: Chinese Immigration and British Columbia
A Seat at the Table is timely project that connected students, museum personnel, cultural organizations, and governments to design and populate two unique but complementary multimedia exhibitions in Vancouver, one in Chinatown, and one in the Museum of Vancouver.
Winner: MUMAQ — Meaningful Objects: A History of Craft in Quebec
The Musée des métiers d’art du Québec’s new permanent exhibition was a catalyst for, and is a reflection of, a full renewal of the museum’s offering and value proposition.
Honourable Mention: McMichael Canadian Art Collection — Uninvited
Uninvited is the largest exhibition in Canada to gather artworks made a century ago by Canadian women from coast to coast to coast.
Honourable Mention: Canada Aviation and Space Museum — Eyes on the Skies
Eyes on the Skies readily embraces the challenge of creating an exhibit that explores the complex field of air traffic control, presenting dense information in an array of stimulating and accessible mediums.
Honourable Mention: University of Toronto Art Museum — Plastic Heart
Plastic Heart is a challenging exploration of our relationship with — or dependency upon — plastic, presenting a collection of contemporary and historical art.
Honourable Mention: Montreal Botanical Garden — An Ode to the Moon
Gardens of Light: An Ode to the Moon is an exhibition in the form of a nocturnal journey, inspired by the beauty of our plant and cultural collections, the light and the meaning of this celestial body.
Award for Outstanding Achievement: Audience Outreach
Winner: Art Gallery of Nova Scotia — Autism Arts
The Autism Arts publication is the product of an inspiring 15-year mission to foster inclusion and create opportunities for Canadian youth living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) through the Autism Arts program. The goals of the program shine through in Autism Arts' pages, demonstrating a strong commitment to advancing conversations about how the art community can continue to improve access for individuals on the autism spectrum.
Honorable Mention: The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery — Community Garden Project
Constructed and operated by the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo, the Community Garden Project is a strong example of community engagement and relationship building in the high days of the pandemic.
Award for Outstanding Achievement: Social Impact
Winner: Winnipeg Art Gallery, Qaumajuq — Inuit Art Centre
Following Quamajuq's completion in 2021, the WAG is now one of Canada's largest museums, and home of the world's largest collection of contemporary Inuit art, housing an astonishing 14,000 pieces. The gallery also developed an advanced digital platform that allows the collection to be viewed anywhere, anytime, creating opportunities for deeper engagement with the history of each piece through multimedia additions.
Honourable Mention: Galt Museum and Archives — Voices of the Land
Making a notable effort to reimagine the role of museums as the keepers of knowledge, the Galt Museum's digital content initiative, Voices of the Land, is a skillfully produced addition to its collection.
Award for Outstanding Achievement: Research
Winner: McMichael Canadian Art Collection — Uninvited
Uninvited is a collection of artworks, strengthened by conviction, offering a counter narrative to the male-centric ethos of Canadian art history. Developed in conjunction with an immensely thorough publication, the exhibition brings the significantly underrepresented female perspective to the McMaster gallery, one of the hallmark institutions of Canadian art.
Winner: Ève Lamoureux — Cultural Mediation, Museums and Diverse Audiences. Guide for an Inclusive Experience
The result of a vast research-action project, Cultural Mediation, Museums and Diverse Audiences. Guide for an Inclusive Experience is a practical tool for museums, particularly for those working directly with the public, to facilitate their interventions with people from marginalized groups.
Honourable Mention: Art Gallery of Nova Scotia — Autism Arts
Presenting the work of students in the Autism Arts program in book form, Autism Arts is also a valuable resource for informing practices of arts education for youth with neurodevelopmental conditions.
Honourable Mention: Art Gallery of Ontario — Picasso: Painting the Blue Period
Concentrating on the years 1901-1904, Picasso: Painting the Blue Period tells the story of how Picasso, then a fledgling painter in his late teens and early twenties, formulated his signature Blue Period style as he moved back and forth between the cities of Paris and Barcelona.
Honourable Mention: The Rooms Corporation — Future Possible: An Art History of Newfoundland and Labrador
Gathering close to 100 artworks, images and objects from across The Rooms art gallery, archives and museum collections, this exhibition asks questions about how histories are told and re-told through images. How do these images define our understanding of this place? How does the past we imagine affect how we move into the future?
Honourable Mention: Museum of Anthropology at UBC — A Future for Memory: Art and Life after the Great East Japan Earthquake
In the 10th anniversary year of the Great East Japan Earthquake A Future for Memory addresses how we deal with memory when our physical surroundings are drastically altered. Even in the midst of disasters, people have the desire to create and to express themselves—as does nature.
Award for Outstanding Achievement: Stewardship of Collections
Winner: Winnipeg Art Gallery, Qaumajuq — Artworks Renaming Initiative, Phase 1
The Artworks' Renaming Initiative was the first of its kind in any Canadian gallery. As with many historical collections of artworks, there are certain works in the Winnipeg Art Gallery's collection that are titled inappropriately in today's context. The Artworks Renaming Initiative addresses these problematic pieces by allowing Indigenous knowledge keepers agency in deciding how to go about renaming.
Award for Distinguished Service
Winner: Dean Beauche — Allen Sapp Gallery (retired)
Mr. Bauche's career in the Canadian cultural sector has been an exemplary in advancing provincial and national and agendas with consistency, possessing what his colleagues describe as a "pragmatic voice of common sense.”
Winner: Kirstin Clausen — Britannia Mine Museum
Kirstin Clausen has earned this award after 30 years of extensive involvement in the cultural industries of BC, working hard to improve the province's museums and their associations, contributing significantly through her work with the British Columbia Museums Association, Barkerville Heritage Trust and currently as Executive Director of Heritage BC.
Winner: Guy Tremblay — Government of New Brunswick (retired)
Guy Tremblay began his career with Parks Canada in 1983. After having worked in the private sector in the development of historical sites in Gaspésie and Lac-Saint-Jean, he joined the team of the Musée régional de la Côte-Nord (Sept-Îles) in 1990 as curator and then director general.
Museum Volunteer Award: Group
Winner: Montreal Museum of Fines Arts
Since 2019, the Volunteer Guides Association of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has been participating in a unique social innovation in Canada: museum tours designed to improve the health and socialization of socially disadvantaged seniors.
Museum Volunteer Award: Individual
Winner: Clifford Pereira
Clifford Joseph Pereira became a volunteer associate (VA) in the Research Committee of the Museum of Anthropology Museum (MOA) in 2015. After noticing the discrepancies in labeling of African items in the multiversity galleries and realizing that the museum is keen to add more accurate labeling, Cliff patiently guided members of the committee on what turned out to be a long journey through Africa, hunting for information to decolonize the approximately 2700+ items in the MOA collection.
President’s Award:
Winner: Anita Price — Association of Nova Scotia Museums (retired)
Anita Price is, in a person, emblematic of type of commitment and enthusiasm for museums that we strive for, especially as representatives of museum associations. Anita was the Executive Director of the Association of Nova Scotia Museums for the last 12 years, during which she was an untiring advocate truly living her calling and building strong relationships within the community, with all levels of government and especially with the members of her association.
CMA Fellows:
Dr. Gerald McMaster
The ceremony also featured the naming of one new CMA Fellow, Dr. Gerald McMaster. Dr. McMaster was not able to attend the ceremony, but he has accepted with delight this honour. More information regarding his nomination will be offered in the upcoming issue of Muse.
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