Messages
Michaëlle Jean
Governor General of Canada
It gives me great pleasure to pay tribute to the winners of this year’s Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts, which as of last year, include the Saidye Bronfman Award, recognizing excellence in the fine crafts. These artists take us on an extraordinary journey, delving into the very meaning of the world around us, exploring the conscious and subconscious spaces that surround us. They bring out the unspeakable and the unspoken, our purest and our darkest impulses, our deepest longings for the sublime.
The vitality of our country’s creative minds, coupled with today’s distribution media, is such that their means of expression are more varied than ever before. In addition to video and multimedia, magnificent creations are now being shared over podcasts and other equally innovative technologies. How extraordinary that these works are reaching segments of the population we would never have dreamed of reaching just five years ago! They are inspiring an everincreasing number of young people of all ages, piquing their curiosity, awakening their imaginations and, best of all, stirring their artistic impulses.
To you, the defenders of free expression, who understand so well how to illuminate complex realities and push back boundaries, thank you. And to you, Ms. Thomson, who through your incomparable skill in arts management have successfully promoted the work of our artists and ensuredtheir rightful place on the public stage, thank you. Your achievements exemplify the notion that truly, anything is possible. Through your work, we are able to rethink how we live and open ourselves to the world.
Karen Kain, Chair
Robert Sirman, Director
Canada Council for the Arts
The eight laureates of the 2008 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts have made remarkable contributions, over several decades, to our fields of perception, our lines of thought and our ways of being.
Their work is expressed in material and ephemeral form, but its essence lies in their penetrating imaginations and in their capacity to range freely in the world of ideas, to translate what they discover into daring and complex creations, and to inspire viewers to stretch their understanding.
We thank them for the insight they have given us. Kenojuak Ashevak for her enchanting and fantastical vision of the spirit of the North; Serge Giguère for the respect for character that infuses great documentary; Saidye Bronfman Award winner Chantal Gilbert for the lyricism of her metal work; Michel Goulet for his dramatically innovative sculpture and public installations; Alex Janvier for his modernist abstractions imbued with profound spirituality; performance artist Tanya Mars for being her own unique visual philosopher; Eric Metcalfe for his avant-gardist and interdisciplinary energy; and art historian and administrator Shirley Thomson for tirelessly promoting the place of art in the nation’s public spaces.
The Canada Council for the Arts thanks its partners, the National Gallery of Canada and The Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation. It also acknowledges the Canadian Museum of Civilization for its invaluable support of the crafts and its collaboration in these distinguished awards.