2018 Selection Committee
Sarah Robayo Sheridan, Curator, Art Museum at the University of Toronto
Sarah Robayo Sheridan is curator at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, where she has also occasionally lectured in curatorial studies. Specialized in the presentation and dissemination of contemporary art, she has worked in a variety of non-profit galleries, museums and festivals in Canada and abroad. She holds an MA in Curatorial Practice from the California College of the Arts (2008) and her past awards include the Young Curators Invitational, Ricard Foundation, Paris (2009). From 2008-2013 she served as Director of Exhibitions and Publications at Mercer Union in Toronto. She has also been active as an independent curator of such projects as Scotiabank Nuit Blanche and has published her writing in magazines and artists' monographs. In 2017, she served as a jury member and curator of the 2017 Sobey Art Award. Her book “Les Levine: Transmedia,” published on the occasion of the Oakville Galleries exhibition of same title, will be released this year.
Adriana Kuiper, Artist and Associate Professor, Mount Allison University
Adriana Kuiper is an artist and educator based in Sackville, New Brunswick. Kuiper is an Associate Professor in the Fine Arts Department at Mount Allison University where she teaches sculpture and drawing. Her recent work includes modified, hidden architectural structures meant to suggest safety from extreme forces, natural and otherwise. Her work investigates provisionally built structures found in the local landscape, and she often reworks instructions for “Do-It-Yourself” shelters and small buildings. Outdoor public installations of her work have been shown recently during Songlines in the Magdalen Islands, at OkQuoi?! Sackville, Nocturne, Halifax, Art in the Open, Charlottetown, Nuit Blanche, Toronto, and at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Kuiper’s work has been shown across Canada in cities such as Lethbridge, Saskatoon, Kitchener, Oakville, Vancouver and Calgary, and has been exhibited internationally in Oslo, Norway. Kuiper has served on a number of national and provincial juries and has been a board member at artist run centres in London, Halifax, and at Struts Gallery in Sackville.
Hugues Charbonneau, Director, Galerie Hugues Charbonneau
Hugues Charbonneau is the founder and director of Galerie Hugues Charbonneau, in Montreal. The gallery fosters the individual practices of its artists, and expands theoretical discourse through the contextualization of projects within and outside of the gallery’s walls. Over the past six years, artists represented by the gallery have exhibited in museums and biennales, including those in Austria, Brazil, Belgium, Britain, Canada, China, Croatia, Finland, France, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Switzerland, Uruguay and the USA. Charbonneau started his professional career in the arts at Esse magazine. Prior to opening his gallery, Charbonneau was the co-director of Galerie Division and contributed to the development of The Arsenal, in Montréal and Toronto. He served on the Board of Directors of multiple non-profit organisations, including the Centre de recherche urbaine de Montréal (CRUM), Skol, Artexte and the Contemporary Art Gallery Association (AGAC).
Naomi Potter, Director/Curator, Esker Foundation
Naomi Potter is the Director/Curator of Esker Foundation in Calgary. From 2009 to 2011, she was curator of Walter Phillips Gallery at The Banff Centre where she produced solo projects and exhibitions with many artists including; Anthony Burnham, Geoffrey Farmer, Melanie Gilligan, Brian Jungen, Ragnar Kjartansson, Silke Otto-Knapp, and Ron Terada. More recently she has worked to develop projects at Esker Foundation with Jason de Haan, Peter von Tiesenhausen, Cedric Bomford, Cynthia Girard, Mia Feuer, Colleen Heslin, Etienne Zack Jasmina Cibic, and Larissa Fassler to name a few. In 2003, Potter was awarded a yearlong Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD) artist residency in Istanbul, and from 2003 to 2007 was co-director of the international artist residency program at CESTA in the Czech Republic. In 2015 was a guest of both the Australian Arts Council and British Council International Curatorial Visit programs, a member of the Curatorial Selection Committee for the 2019 Biennale, a jury member for the Salt Spring Nation Art Prize (2017), Sobey Art Award (2016), and the RBC Canadian Painting Competition (2014). She currently sits on the Board of Stride Gallery in Calgary, and the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program Committee, The Banff Centre. Potter holds a BFA from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and an MFA in sculpture from Concordia University, Montreal.