Middlebrook Prize awarded to Dallas Fellini
The Art Gallery of Guelph (AGG) is pleased to announce that Dallas Fellini has been awarded the 2024 Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators. Created in 2012, the annual prize is awarded to a Canadian curator or curatorial team under 30 with the goal to support a resilient, sustainable, and inclusive arts sector in Canada while recognizing the crucial role played by exhibitions in expanding awareness and art histories. Fellini’s proposed exhibition, Some kind of we, was selected as the winning submission by this year’s Middlebrook Prize jury composed of Alyssa Fearon (Director/Curator at Dunlop Art Gallery), Tarah Hogue (Curator of Indigenous Art, Remai Modern), and Renée van der Avoird (Associate Curator of Canadian Art, Art Gallery of Ontario).
Fellini’s curatorial work explores trans histories and futures, the role that the archive plays in constructing trans realities, and the function of art in community and social practice. Some kind of we features works that approach or incorporate t4t sensibilities, emphasizing networks of trans relationality, self-representation, cross-generational inheritance, and desire and love between trans people. t4t is a shorthand that emerged in the early 2000s, used in Craigslist “personals” by transgender and transsexual people who were prioritizing relationships with other trans people. The exhibition will feature video works by Mirha-Soleil Ross in collaboration with Xanthra Phillippa MacKay, and B.G-Osborne with Benjamin Da Silva, as well as a print project by Cleopatria Peterson, paralleled by a “distributed exhibition” that speaks to trans histories of pre- and early-internet activism and community-building in Canada.
Each year, the Middlebrook Prize recognizes and demonstrates the vital role of artistic expression in an era of ongoing and unprecedented economic, political, environmental, and social upheaval. While juror Alyssa Fearon noted the importance of the 2024 Middlebrook Prize exhibition’s emphasis “on t4t relationality and visibility,” for Renée van der Avoird, Fellini’s proposal highlights an “urgent topic with artworks that are compelling, moving, and impactful.” Juror Tarah Hogue noted the significance of the “distributed exhibition as a means of reaching trans audience members and reiterating the networks of support trans communities have created.” Some kind of we will be presented at the Art Gallery of Guelph from September through December, 2024.
Curator Biography
Dallas Fellini is a curator, writer, and artist living and working in Toronto. Their research is situated at the intersection of trans studies and archival studies, interrogating the compromised conditions under which trans histories have been recorded and considering representational and archival alternatives to trans hypervisibility. Dallas is currently pursuing a Master of Visual Studies in Curatorial Studies at the University of Toronto and holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from OCAD University. They have curated exhibitions and screenings for Gallery 44, Vtape, Trinity Square Video, Xpace Cultural Centre, Hearth, Riverdale Hub Gallery, the Jackman Humanities Institute, and the Art Museum at the University of Toronto. Dallas is a cofounder of Silverfish, an arts publication devoted to interdisciplinary collaboration, skill-sharing, and cultivating sustained dialogue between emerging artists and writers.
2024 Jurors
Alyssa Fearon holds the position of Director/Curator at Dunlop Art Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan. Integral to Fearon’s curatorial practice is a community-based approach that seeks to foster connections with groups that have been historically and systemically excluded from the gallery milieu. In 2018, Fearon was inaugural Curator of Nuit Blanche Toronto’s Scarborough zone. Fearon was also Curator at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, 2018 – 2020. Raised in Scarborough, Ontario, Fearon is now based on Treaty 4 territory in Regina, Saskatchewan. She holds an MBA in Arts Management from the Schulich School of Business, an MA in Art History from York University, and was a Salzburg Global Fellow.
Tarah Hogue is a curator and writer in Saskatoon, Canada, located in Treaty 6 territory and the homeland of the Métis. Raised on the border between Treaty 6 and 7 territories in Alberta, she is of Métis and white settler ancestry, and is a citizen of the Métis Nation–Saskatchewan. Her writing and curatorial work attends to the complexities of place, being-in-motion, and Indigeneity, and is grounded in collaborative and conciliatory approaches. Hogue is currently the Curator of Indigenous Art at Remai Modern, and has previously held positions at the Vancouver Art Gallery, grunt gallery, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. Her recent exhibition, Storied Objects: Métis Art in Relation, curated with advisor Sherry Farrell Racette, received an Award for Excellence from the Association of Art Museum Curators in 2023. In 2019, Hogue received the Hnatyshyn Foundation – TD Bank Group Award for Emerging Curator of Contemporary Canadian Art. She has authored catalogue essays for artists such as Maureen Gruben, Tania Willard, Adrian Stimson, Henry Tsang, Judy Watson, and Jin-me Yoon. Her writing has also been published in C Magazine, Canadian Art, The Capilano Review, and elsewhere. She holds a master’s degree in Critical and Curatorial Studies from the University of British Columbia and a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from Queen’s University.
Renée van der Avoird is the Associate Curator of Canadian Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. Prior to joining the AGO in 2018, she held positions as Associate Curator/Registrar at the MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie; Assistant Director of Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto; and Curatorial Mentor at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts Degree in Fine Arts and French Language & Literature from Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, and a Master’s degree in Museum Studies from the University of Toronto. Her writing has been in published in periodicals including C Magazine, Border Crossings, and various exhibition catalogues, including Magnetic North: Imagining Canada in Painting 1910-1940 published by the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany. Van der Avoird’s area of specialty is modern and contemporary Canadian women artists. She is a member of Aisle 4, a curatorial collective based in Toronto that initiates and promotes socially engaged artwork through collaborations with artists from a range of disciplines.
The Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators is made possible through the support of the Centre Wellington Community Foundation Middlebrook Social Innovation Fund, The Guelph Community Foundation Musagetes Fund, as well as private donations.
About the Middlebrook Prize
Founded in 2012, the Middlebrook Prize is a national prize awarded annually to foster social innovation and curatorial excellence in Canada while encouraging creative inquiry and public engagement. Selected by jury of arts professionals, each winner is a curator or curatorial team under 30 who receives an honorarium as well as curatorial mentorship in the development of an exhibition. The Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators is made possible through the support of the Centre Wellington Community Foundation Middlebrook Social Innovation Fund, the Guelph Community Foundation Musagetes Fund, and through private donations. For more information about the Middlebrook Prize and the cohort of past winners, please visit middlebrookprize.ca.
Media contact:
Nicole Neufeld, Community Engagement Coordinator nneufeld@artgalleryofguelph.ca | 519-837-0010 x 2
Art Gallery of Guelph
358 Gordon Street,
Guelph, ON N1G 1Y1
Open Tuesday to Sunday, 12 – 5 pm, Accessible
519-837-0010 | artgalleryofguelph.ca | info@artgalleryofguelph.ca
Image details: (1) Dallas Fellini headshot. Photo credit: Phillip Ly
(2) B.G-Osborne in collaboration with Benjamin Da Silva, POLISHED, 2016, video, 7:22. Courtesy of the artist.
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