Yellow cube with a single letter on each surface shown. The letters in this image are M on the top, P and f on the sides

Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators

The Art Gallery of Guelph is accepting submissions until Friday, January 31, 2025, at 5 pm ET for the Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators.

The Art Gallery of Guelph is accepting submissions until Friday, January 31, 2025, at 5 pm ET for the Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators.

Founded in 2012, the Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators is awarded annually to an emerging Canadian curator under 30 with the aim to foster social innovation and curatorial excellence in Canada. Hosted and administered by the Art Gallery of Guelph, the winner is selected by a jury of arts leaders and receives a $5,000 honorarium as well as mentorship in the development of an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Guelph. This year’s jurors include Erin Szikora, recently appointed Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Guelph; artist, writer, and curator Charles Campbell; and Pan Wendt, Curator at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery. See their bios below

Submissions are assessed based on artistic quality as well as conceptual strength of the proposed exhibition. The successful applicant’s exhibition will be presented as part of the Art Gallery of Guelph’s Fall 2025 season. By supporting and mobilizing Canadian creative talent, the Middlebrook Prize aims to inspire positive social change through creativity in an era of ongoing and unprecedented economic, environmental, social, and cultural upheaval. Proposals should emphasize contemporary Canadian art with attention to audience, community, and social relevance.

Applications must include:
• Letter of introduction: applicants should articulate their curatorial values and philosophy as well as the meaning of the Middlebrook Prize in terms of their career
• Two-page exhibition proposal: proposal must include curatorial statement, list of artists/artworks supported by a clear, compelling case for their inclusion, and a description of potential outreach programming
• Exhibition budget up to $10,000 including: artist fees (per 2025 CARFAC fee schedule for Category II institutions), estimated shipping via an accredited art transportation company, any special equipment requirements for the exhibition, a description of unique or unusual installation requirements, and projected travel/accommodation expenses for artist(s)/curator
• One sample of critical writing: curatorial essay or published article/review, for example
• Curriculum vitae: current, maximum 3 pages
• Support images (10): with descriptions (artist name, title, date, medium, dimensions) including 5 images supporting exhibition proposal and 5 images documenting past curatorial work
• Floor plan: carefully consider the scale of the space and detail the proposed layout of works in the floor plan (mpfycc-floor-plan)

Applications are to be submitted in a single PDF document, with the subject line Middlebrook Prize, to info@artgalleryofguelph.ca. We welcome and encourage submissions from applicants who are BIPOC, LGBTQ2S, women, and persons with disabilities.

Notes:

• The award winner must be under 30 years of age by December 31, 2025 and is required to demonstrate proof of age on signing of the exhibition contract
• The Prize is open to Canadian citizens, as well as non-Canadians currently living and working in Canada
• If the Prize is awarded to a non-Canadian curator, they must be resident in Canada for the full term of the Prize (March 1 through December 31, 2025)
• For more information, visit middlebrookprize.ca

Important dates:

• Call for Submissions: December 6, 2024 – January 31, 2025
• Award Presentation: March 2025
• Exhibition Dates: September – December 2025

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.

Juror Bios

Charles Campbell

Charles Campbell is a Jamaican–born multidisciplinary artist, writer, and curator based on lək̓ʷəŋən territory, Victoria, BC. Using sculpture, sound, installation and performance, his work pulls at the threads of time. Finding channels into the past and future, Campbell reconstructs broken somatic, communal and spiritual connections, creating spaces of solace and meaning for all of us living in the wake of slavery and colonization. His most recent work recreates the submerged terrain where African and North American tectonic plates converge, bringing us into proximity with the realm of spirits lost in hundreds of years of forced Atlantic crossings. Campbell’s artworks have been exhibited widely in the Caribbean, Canada and internationally. Recent exhibitions include The Other Side of Now (Perez Art Museum, Miami), How Not to Be Seen (Remai Modern) and Vancouver Special, Disorientations and Echo (Vancouver Art Gallery). Campbell is the recipient of the 2022 VIVA Award and the 2020 City of Victoria Creative Builder Award. He holds an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College and a BFA from Concordia University.

Erin Szikora

Erin Szikora steps into the position of Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Guelph in March 2025. Of mixed settler (Scottish and Hungarian) and Haudenosaunee (Cayuga, Six Nations of the Grand River) ancestry, she holds a BA in Art History and Visual Studies from the University of Toronto and an MA in Contemporary Art, Design, and New Media Art Histories from OCAD University. Szikora has recently served as Interim Curator at the Doris McCarthy Gallery and previously held the position of Associate Curator, Exhibitions at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, where she curated notable exhibitions such as World-builders, shapeshifters and Raechel Wastesicoot: Kenatentas, as well as the GOG award-winning Mamanaw Pekiskwewina | Mother Tongues: Dish With One Spoon Territory.

Pan Wendt

Pan Wendt has been Curator at Confederation Centre Art Gallery since 2010 and was co-curator of Art in the Open from 2011 to 2021. He has guest curated exhibitions for various institutions and served on numerous national and regional juries. He has published in dozens of museum catalogues, as well as journals such as Arts Atlantic, C Magazine, and Fillip, and is the founding co-editor of Meet Us Halfway: a Journal of Art and Culture. He studied art history at Williams College and Yale University, specializing in art of the 1960s and 1970s.

About the Middlebrook Prize

Founded in 2012, Middlebrook Prize is a national prize awarded annually to foster social innovation and curatorial excellence in Canada while encouraging social connectedness and a shared sense of community. Selected by jury of arts professionals, each winner is a curator under 30 who receives an honorarium as well as curatorial mentorship in the development of an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Guelph.