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Alumna Nadia Myre Named Inaugural Recipient of the Walter Phillips Gallery Indigenous Commission Award

Myre Decolonial Gesture Or Doing It Wrong Refair Le Chemin 2016”  Courtesy Mc Cord Museum Montreal  Photo Marilyn Aitken X 895
Nadia Myre
Decolonial Gesture or Doing It Wrong. Refair le Chemin 2016
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By Roxanne Toronto

Posted on July 28, 2016 | Updated April 27, 2021, 2:10pm

Myre will receive an award of $20K to support the completion of a new work.

Nadia Myre, a visual artist from Québec and an Algonquin member of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation, is the inaugural recipient of the Walter Phillips Gallery Indigenous Commission Award at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Myre will receive an award of $20,000 to support the creation of a new work.

“I am thrilled to receive the Banff Centre’s first Walter Phillips Gallery Indigenous Commission Award, and value the Centre’s continued endeavours to create a space of encounter, exchange, and dialogue for Indigenous artists – both nationally and internationally.”

Nadia Myre

For over a decade, Myre’s multi-disciplinary practice has been inspired by themes of identity, language, longing, and loss. The commissioned work, called Living with Contradiction (working title), is a two-channel video that explores the challenges and issues that contemporary Indigenous artists and arts professionals face working within a global Indigenous paradigm. Following the completion of the work, Myre’s piece will enter the Banff Centre’s permanent collection, overseen by the Walter Phillips Gallery.

The project was unanimously chosen by the Banff Centre and previous Indigenous Residency faculty, Candice Hopkins and David Garneau.

“Good artists always push their work in new directions. Nadia Myre is no exception. This commission follows in a new path in her practice, a video that considers the importance of conversation. It promises to be a poignant document of a community of Indigenous practitioners, that offers to dig deeper into the contractions, questions, and complicities that mark identity-based practices,” said Hopkins.

The Walter Phillips Gallery Indigenous Commission Award reflects Banff Centre’s dedication to excellence in Indigenous programming, as outlined in its new, five-year strategic plan entitled The Creative Voice: 2016-2021. Highlights from the plan are available online.

Bannff Centre is proud to offer excellent Indigenous Arts learning and creation opportunities that explore contemporary issues and embody the values of Indigenous people,” said Carolyn Warren, Vice President, Arts, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. “This commissioning award is a very significant initiative in Canada to support the creation of original works by contemporary Indigenous artists in the visual arts."

Banff Centre’s Walter Phillips Gallery is proud to support the development of visual and digital art in Canada, and has been commissioning and exhibiting contemporary art since 1976. The Walter Phillips Gallery Indigenous Commission Award is generously supported by RBC.

About Nadia Myre:

Image courtesy of McCord Museum, Montreal.