The Rewilding Arts Prize

The Rewilding Arts Prize showcases Canadian artists who are creating innovative art that communicates the importance of nature in our communities

Congratulations to the winners of the inaugural Rewilding Arts Prize!

Art can be a powerful tool to educate, advocate and inspire. Given the climate and biodiversity crises, we need the ingenuity and creativity of artists more than ever to help meet the profound challenges we face. The Rewilding Arts Prize celebrates artists who are using artistic means to creatively visualize and bring attention to issues of rewilding in our lives and communities.

The 2022 Rewilding Arts Prize was presented by the David Suzuki Foundation and Rewilding Magazine. The competition was open to artists and groups in Canada. From over 550 artists that applied, our esteemed jury selected six winners to each receive $2,000 prizes and be profiled in Rewilding Magazine. The jury also selected seven runners up that will receive $500 each.

2022 Rewilding Arts Prize winners [in alphabetical order]:

Runners up [in alphabetical order]: Anna Binta Diallo, Laara Cerman, Janice Wright Cheney, Hashveenah Manoharan, Angela Marsh, Sarah Peebles, Cole Swanson.

The Rewilding Arts Prize recipients were chosen by a jury of artists, including visual artist, author and advocate Christi Belcourt; printmaker and visual artist Edward Fu-Chen Juan; visual artist and educator Charmaine Lurch; visual journalist and author Sarah Lazarovic and multidisciplinary street artist Nick Sweetman.

Winners

2022 Rewilding Arts Prize winner Khadija Baker

KHADIJA BAKER

  • Multidisciplinary artist from Saint-Leonard, Quebec
  • Combines textiles, sculpture, performance, sound and video
  • Created “Performing community garden” installation with handmade paper and plants
  • Instagram: @bakerkhadija
2022 Rewilding Arts Prize Winner Natasha Lavdovsky

NATASHA LAVDOVSKY

  • Vancouver Island-based artist, amateur lichenologist and naturalist
  • Uses ephemeral, salvaged, scavenged, and invasive natural materials to highlight interconnections to the ecologies that support domestic life, while questioning the human/nature dualism that is at the basis of colonial culture
  • Over four years created a moss-covered armchair in a remote coastal rainforest
  • Instagram: @virtual.tasha
2022 Rewilding Arts Prize winner Amanda McCavour

AMANDA McCAVOUR

  • Toronto-based textile artist creates large-scale, immersive embroidered installations
  • Interested in finding connections between scientific research, ecology and decorative patterns
  • Instagram: @amandamccavour
2022 Rewilding Arts Prize winner The Only Animal

THE ONLY ANIMAL

  • The Only Animal is a theatre company that brings arts and artists to the front lines of the climate emergency.
  • Creates immersive work that arises from a deep engagement with place and theatrical adventurism that seeks to re/connect human nature with Nature
  • Instagram: @theonlyanimaltheatre
2022 Rewilding Arts Prize winner Amber Sandy

AMBER SANDY

  • Anishinaabe artist, hide tanner, harvester and natural scientist
  • Art practice focuses on using natural elements from the land to reclaim traditional knowledge that was lost over generations because of colonialism, and to continue honouring relations with non-human kin
  • Created a purse using birch bark and home-tanned moose and deer hide
  • Instagram: @ambsandy
2022 Rewilding Arts Prize winner Justin Tyler Tate

JUSTIN TYLER TATE

Rewilding Arts Prize Jury

Christi Belcourt

Christi Belcourt (apihtâwikosisâniskwêw / mânitow sâkahikanihk) is a visual artist, designer, community organizer, environmentalist, social justice advocate and avid land-based arts and language learner. Like generations of Indigenous artists before her, she celebrates the beauty of the natural world and traditional Indigenous world views on spirituality and natural medicines while exploring nature’s symbolic properties. To learn more about Christi Belcourt’s visual arts practice and activism, please follow her on Facebook @ChristiBelcourt, Twitter @christibelcourt or Instagram @christi_belcourt.

Edward Fu-Chen Juan

Edward Fu-Chen Juan is a contemporary visual artist based in Vancouver, BC, the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. He identifies as a queer Taiwanese Canadian with ethnic roots from the Hakka and the Plains First Nation People of Taiwan. His art practice is printmaking on paper with water-based ink extracted from plant and insect ingredients. Presently, he has expanded his process to papermaking with unconventional plant fibres of significant cultural importance. You can follow his journey on Instagram @edjuandraws and his blog www.edjuan.com.

Charmaine Lurch

Charmaine Lurch is an interdisciplinary visual artist whose work draws attention to human-environmental relationships. Lurch’s paintings and sculptures are conversations on infrastructures and the spaces and places we inhabit. Working with a range of materials and reimagining our surroundings — from bees and taxi cabs to The Tempest and quiet moments of joy — Lurch subtly connects Black life and movement globally. Follow Charmaine on Instagram @charmaine.lurch and her website clurch.com.

Sarah Lazarovic

Sarah Lazarovic is a climate artist, writer and communicator. She writes the not depressing climate newsletter, Minimum Viable Planet, is head of communications for Rewiring America and co-created Talk Climate to Me, a climate education program that has trained more than 1,300 women. Follow Sarah on Instagram @sarahlazarovic and Twitter @sarahlazarovic.

Nick Sweetman

Nick Sweetman is a multidisciplinary artist from Toronto whose practice has explored painting and its intersection with photography, video, installation, mixed media, and urban intervention. He has been working in public space on mural projects in partnership with various artists and non-profit organizations, including the David Suzuki Foundation. He has dedicated many projects to raising awareness about the importance of pollinators, painting giant bees towering over busy city streets and filling laneways with butterfly-themed murals. Follow Nick on Instagram @nick_sweetman and Twitter @nsweetman.

Rewilding Arts Prize FAQ

  • A: Rewilding is a term first used widely in the 1990s. It usually applies to efforts to restore ecological function and natural processes to an area. For the purposes of this prize, we are applying the term “rewilding” to the human-dominated landscapes we call home: our yards, neighbourhoods and communities. How do we rewild a neighbourhood or bring nature home to a community? We have a few ideas, but we’re also excited to showcase interpretations of this theme from artists throughout the country.

  • A: The David Suzuki Foundation ran the Rewilding Arts Prize in late 2022 as a pilot project. Winners were announced in February 2023. We hope to offer the prize again. Stay tuned by subscribing to the David Suzuki Foundation email newsletter and following us on social media.

  • A: Applicants for the Rewilding Arts Prize must live in Canada and be at least 18 years of age. Arts groups and collectives that apply must have a primary applicant who lives in Canada and is 18+. We encourage artists of any gender, ethnicity or ability to apply.

    The submissions must include original works of art and can be any medium, including but not limited to painting, drawing, sculpture, illustration, mural, photography, video, landscaping, architecture, performing arts, creative writing and textiles.

  • A: The Rewilding Arts Prize is open to any artists and groups working in any medium, including but not limited to painting, drawing, sculpture, illustration, mural, photography, video, landscaping, architecture, performing arts, creative writing and textiles. Submissions must include original works of art. We invite artists to submit work relating to the theme of Rewilding Communities. This theme is open to artists’ interpretations.

  • A: Applicants are evaluated for any past and current work submitted, not for new or proposed projects. Applications must include original works of art. The David Suzuki Foundation and Rewilding Magazine will only use submitted content with the permission of the artist(s) and for promotional activities related to the Rewilding Arts Prize.

  • A: The winners receive $2,000. Their work is promoted through the David Suzuki Foundation and Rewilding Magazine’s web and social media accounts and through media relations and outreach.

  • A: Each selected artist and group commits to participate in a series of two online networking workshops. The workshops allow participants to connect, share and learn more about each artist’s work. Each winner is expected to share stories and digital copies of relevant art with the David Suzuki Foundation and Rewilding Magazine for outreach and promotional purposes. Artwork will not be shared without the consent of the artist(s).

  • A: The 2022 Rewilding Arts Prizes were announced on February 7, 2023. Read our media release here. We hope to offer the prize again. Stay tuned by subscribing to the David Suzuki Foundation email newsletter and following us on social media