|
|
 |
June 6, 2008
2008 Mayor's Arts Awards recipients announced
Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan and City Council have announced the honourees
for the annual Mayor’s Arts Awards to be held on June 23, 2008,
at 7:00 pm at the Vancouver Playhouse. This year’s awards ceremony,
hosted by Mayor Sam Sullivan, will pay tribute to the work of these 13
honourees as well as the emerging artists who will be announced at the
event.
Each year a Vancouver artist or community member who has made a significant
contribution to the creative life of our city is nominated by a jury
of peers convened by the Alliance for Arts and Culture. Each honouree
is invited to select an ‘emerging artist’ in their discipline
who demonstrates the promise of the next generation. The 2008 honourees
are:
Studio Arts
Bing Wing Thom, Craft and Design; Robert Le
Crom, Culinary Arts; David Paperny, Film
and New Media; Daphne Marlatt, Literary Arts; Liz
Magor, Visual Arts; John Mitchell and Vincent Trasov,
Public Art; Richard Tetrault, Community Arts.
Performing Arts
Denise Ball, Music; Peter Bingham,
Dance; Bill Millerd, Theatre.
Support of the Arts
Yulanda Faris, Philanthropy; Odlum Brown Limited,
Business Support; Rob O’Dea, Volunteerism.
“The City of Vancouver is proud to recognize these outstanding
individuals who have shared their creativity and passion for the arts
with our city. They truly represent the breadth and diversity of Vancouver’s
creative sector,” said Mayor Sullivan.
Other artists being recognized include George McWhirter,
Inaugural Poet Laureate for 2007-09; Michael Kluckner for Vancouver
Remembered, the 2008 City of Vancouver Book Award Winner; and Kevin
Schmidt and Rhonda Weppler, recipients of two
Artist Live/Work Awards for 2005-08.
The Mayor’s Arts Awards, approved in principle by City Council
in November 2006, recognize established and emerging artists in a wide
array of disciplines, from literary to culinary to performing and visual
arts. This year the Mayor’s Arts Awards have broadened the categories
to reflect the wide reach of Vancouver’s creative sector and to
celebrate their achievements.
Tickets for the Mayor’s Arts Awards are free and can be reserved
by calling 604-871-6117 or by e-mailing ocaRSVP@vancouver.ca
For more information:
Corporate
Communications
604.871.6336
2008 Mayor’s Arts Awards:
Recipient’s Biographical Information
Studio Arts
Craft and Design
Bing Wing Thom, principal of Bing Wing Thom Architects
founded in Vancouver in 1980, has earned a global reputation for his
distinguished career. He has received the Order of Canada for his contribution
to architecture and the Golden Jubilee Medal for outstanding service
to his country. His collection of legacy buildings around the world
include the Canada Pavilion for Expo 92 in Seville; the new mixed-use
campus for Simon Fraser University; the Chan Centre for the Performing
Arts, the Aberdeen Centre; the Pacific Canada Pavilion at the Vancouver
Aquarium and Marine Science Centre; and Arena Stage theatre complex
in Washington, D.C.
Culinary Arts
Robert Le Crom, executive chef at the Fairmont Hotel
Vancouver since 1989, oversees the culinary operation of Griffins Restaurant,
900 West Lounge and in-room dining and banquets for the Fairmont. Born
and raised in Brittany, France, he studied at the Tours Hotel School
in the Loire Valley and began cooking in 1962, honing his skills while
working in France, England, Spain and Japan. In 1990, he introduced
the Fairmont culinary apprentice program, offering on-the-job training
in the Fairmont kitchens. He has been selected, along with two other
Vancouver chefs, to attend the 2008 Beijing Olympic Summer Games as
an official member of the Canadian Olympic Team.
Film and New Media
David Paperny graduated with a Master’s degree
from the Annenberg School of Communications and began his career producing
current affairs programs at CBC Television. In 1994, he and his wife,
Audrey Mehler, co-founded Paperny Films, shortly after his documentary The
Broadcast Tapes of Dr. Peter was nominated for an Academy Award.
Over the last 14 years as an independent producer and director, he
has focussed on telling stories of strong Canadian personalities, of
eclectic and charismatic individuals, of determined characters who
have overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. As an executive producer,
he has dedicated his efforts towards nurturing young Canadian talent,
presenting them with opportunities to showcase their work on international
television.
Literary Arts
Vancouver-based Daphne Marlatt has written more than
20 books of poetry, fiction and essays. In the 1970s, she worked as an
aural historian in both the Japanese-Canadian fishing community of Steveston
and the multicultural neighbourhood of Strathcona, editing two collections
of interviews for the Provincial Archives. In 2006, she was made a Member
of the Order of Canada. Over the years, she has taught at several universities,
particularly Simon Fraser, and served as writer-in-residence and mentor
to emerging writers at the Banff Centre for the Arts.
Visual Arts
Liz Magor is a Vancouver-based Canadian artist who
works in and teaches sculpture, photography and installation. Educated
at the University of British Columbia, Parson’s School of Design
in New York and the Vancouver School of Art, she has been making and
exhibiting art since 1973, including exhibitions such as Documenta
8, The Venice Biennale and the Sydney Biennale. Her work has been shown
at galleries across Canada, including the Vancouver Art Gallery, the
Power Plant in Toronto and the Musee d’art Contemporain in Montreal.
She has been an Associate Professor of Visual Art at the Emily Carr
Institute of Art and Design since 1999.
Public Art
John Mitchell and Vincent Trasov for their body of
work, including the Mr. Peanut Campaign of 1974, a landmark conceptual
performance art piece.
Vincent Trasov is a painter, video and performance
artist whose work is often media based and collaborative in spirit. In
1969 he founded Image Bank with Michael Morris; in 1973 he was co-founder
and co-director of Western Front Society; in 1981 he was a guest of Berliner
Kuenstlerprogramm DAAD to Berline; and in 1990 he and Morris founded
the Morris/Trasov Archive to research contemporary art and communication.
He has had numerous international exhibitions and is represented in public
and private collections in North America and Europe.
Honouring Mr. Peanut
The Mr. Peanut electoral campaign was a watershed event that exemplified
the artist’s utopian ideals at work in the public arena. The
aim was to reinvent everything in order to create the possibility of
utopia that recognized art as a process for determining the Cultural
Ecology. The exhibition accurately reflects the spirit of the times
when ‘parallel galleries’ and artists’ collectives
were being formed. Image Bank, General Idea and the Western Front were
in the vanguard of this activity, experimenting with altering persona,
creating networks and collaborating in interdisciplinary methods. The
implications of these experiments have been a major influence on the
development of media art, performative practice as well as redefining
the role of art and the artist in contemporary society.
Michael Morris
February 2006
Community Arts
Richard Tetrault, whose paintings, prints and murals
explore life within the contemporary urban landscape, has lived and
worked in Vancouver for more than 30 years. He studied drawing, painting
and printmaking in Vancouver and New York and his work has been exhibited
extensively both locally and internationally in more than 50 group
and solo exhibitions in Canada, the U.S., Europe, Africa, Mexico, Thailand
and Japan. His mural work can be seen on streets, in community centres
and schools, focussing on issues of community, environment and cultural
origins. Painted Lives and Shifting Landscapes documents his
work of the past 30 years
Performing Arts
Music
Denise Ball, CBC music producer, has spent more than
two decades working with some of Canada’s finest musicians, producing,
for example, the award-winning recording of concerti by Barber, Korngold
and Walton featuring the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra for CBC Records
(winner of the Grammy, Juno and Western Canadian Music Awards for best
classical release of 2007). Since 1991, she has been the producer and
manager of the CBC Radio Orchestra. She was also co-founder and co-artistic
director of Vancouver’s Curio Ensemble.
Dance
Vancouver-based Peter Bingham has been a driving force
in Canada’s contact improvisation scene for 30 years. Influenced
by his early training with dancer/choreographer Linda Rubin, he later
studied with American proponents of contact, Steve Paxton and Nancy Stark
Smith. In 1977, he co-founded Fulcrum with Andrew Harwood and Helen Clarke
and the group presented contact-based dance performances and workshops
in Vancouver and across Canada to enthusiastic response. In 1982, he
joined six other independent artists, including Lola McLaughlin, Jay
Hiribayashi, Barbara Bourget, Peter Ryan, Jennifer Mascall and Ahmed
Hassan, to create the collective EDAM (Experimental Dance and Music).
He has been its sole artistic director since 1989.
Theatre
Bill Millerd, Artistic Managing Director of Vancouver’s
Arts Club Theatre Company since 1972 and the longest serving artistic
director in Canada, graduated from UBC and went on to graduate from
the National Theatre School. He has worked for several Canadian theatre
companies, including the Shaw Festival and the Playhouse Theatre Company.
During his tenure at the Arts Club, he oversaw the construction of
the Granville Island Stage and the Revue Stage as well as the re-opening
of the historic Stanley Theatre. Under his leadership, the theatre
has staged more than 110 Canadian works, including more than 70 premieres
of new Canadian plays. He has received a Jessie Richardson Theatre
Award for Career Achievement and is a member of the Order of Canada.
Support of the Arts
Philanthropy
Yulanda Faris, Chair of Vancouver Opera Foundation
and Founder of the Judith Forst Fund for Young Artist Training, was
born in Jamaica where she developed her passion for the arts. After
graduating from McGill University, she moved to Vancouver in 1974.
She has served as president of the Judith Marcuse Dance Company, as
a board member of the Vancouver International Writers’ Festival
and Family Services of the North Shore, and as a volunteer at the Vancouver
Art Gallery, for UNICEF and at St. Paul’s Hospital. She continues
to support the Downtown Women’s Eastside Centre, Covenant House,
Music in the Morning, the Vancouver Symphony, the Vancouver Children’s
Festival, Bard on the Beach and the Vancouver Opera Guild. She is also
on the Advisory Board for the Dean of UBC’s Faculty of Arts and
Channel M. She was honoured in 2007 by the Minerva Foundation for BC
Women with its Women in Music Award.
Business Support
Odlum Brown Limited, nominated by Festival Vancouver
with support from Vancouver Opera and the Vancouver Recital Society,
is an independent, British Columbia based, full-service investment
firm providing professional advice, objective research and personalized
client service to investors since 1923. The firm’s principal
advantage within the industry is its independence. By not acting as
underwriters or trading for its own account, Odlum Brown is committed
to providing value-based recommendations that are consistent with client
needs.
Volunteerism
Rob O’Dea, long-term board president of the
East Side Culture Crawl, was born in Newfoundland and raised in Newfoundland
and Nova Scotia. After graduating from Dalhousie University, he moved
to Vancouver and has worked for 19 years with Terra Housing Consultants
where he manages the development of non-profit community-based housing.
Since moving to Vancouver, Rob has sat on more than 25 different volunteer
boards and numerous committees in sectors such as housing and cooperatives,
local environment, politics, neighbourhoods and the arts, including
the Eastside Culture Crawl. At first a volunteer with the Crawl, he
was soon sharing the coordinator role and honing his skills in governance
and leadership to establish the Crawl as a not-for-profit society.
During Rob’s tenure as board president, the society grew and
flourished. In 2007, he was nominated for the Alliance for Arts & Culture’s
Board Member of the Year.
[News Release Index]
|
