Sobey Art Award – Jury

CHAIR

Sasha Suda, PhD
Director and CEO
National Gallery of Canada

Sasha Suda was appointed Director and CEO of the National Gallery of Canada in February 2019. Sasha believes that the Gallery’s role is to serve all Canadians equally from coast to coast to coast. 

Sasha has led the revitalization of the Gallery’s purpose, vision, and mission and its first-ever strategic planning process.  As a result of this work, the Gallery has undertaken digital rebranding exercise, transformed its exhibition planning process, and reimagined its external stakeholder engagement strategy. A new, and clear, focus on justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility with a firm commitment to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples embraces the future and positions the National Gallery of Canada for its next chapter. 

Sasha completed her AB at Princeton University, her MA in art history at Williams College and her PhD at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. She lives on unceded Algonquin territory commonly known as the Sandy Hill neighborhood of Ottawa.

Photo: Annie France Noel

ATLANTIC

Nisk Imbeault
Director and Curator
Galerie d'art Louise and Reuben-Cohen, University of Moncton

Nisk Imbeault has a B.A. in Visual Arts from the Université de Moncton, with additional studies in History, Philosophy and the Arts at the Université du Québec à Montréal. From 2001 to 2011, she was Director of the Moncton artist-run centre, Galerie Sans Nom and, since 2010, has been the Director and Curator of the Galerie d'art Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen at the Université de Moncton.

Imbeault has organized exhibitions with artists from Acadia and beyond, and has contributed to various public art projects in Moncton, including the Images rémanentes art walk, the Jè-st’, festival d’art performatif et d’intervention and the Symposium d’art/nature: Moncton. She has served on various arts-related boards and committees, including the New Brunswick Arts Board, and was Chair of the pan-Canadian Association des groupes en arts visuels francophones [Association of Francophone Visual Arts Organizations].

Photo: Kétiana Bello

QUEBEC

Dominique Fontaine
Independent Curator

Dominique Fontaine is a curator and Founding Director of aPOSteRIORI, a non-profit curatorial platform involved in researching, documenting, developing, producing and facilitating innovation in diverse contemporary art practices. She has a degree in Visual Arts and Arts Administration from the University of Ottawa, and completed the De Appel Curatorial Programme in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Fontaine’s recent curatorial projects include Here We Are Here: Black Canadian Contemporary Art at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Dineo Seshee Bopape: and- in. the light of this._______ at the Darling Foundry, Repérages ou À la découverte de notre monde ou Sans titre at articule in Montreal, and Between the earth and the sky, the possibility of everything at Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Toronto 2014. She is co-instigator of the Black Curators Forum, and is a member of AICA-Canada, the American Association of Museum Curators (AAMC), and the International Contemporary Art Curators Association (IKT). She lives in Montreal.

ONTARIO

Emelie Chhangur
Director/Curator
Agnes Etherington Art Centre 

Artist and writer Emelie Chhangur is the new Director and Curator of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre. In her previous curatorial career at the Art Gallery of York University, she led the gallery’s reorientation as a civic, community-facing, ethical space, driven by social process and intersectional collaboration.

Distinguishing herself as a cultural worker dedicated to questioning the social and civic role of the public institutions of art, Chhangur developed a practice she calls “in-reach” — a concept that has since transformed engaged institutional practice in the arts across Canada. In 2019, she won the Ontario Association of Art Galleries’ inaugural BIPOC Changemaker Award and, in 2020, she won the prestigious Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence.

PRAIRIES AND NORTH

Tarah Hogue
Curator (Indigenous Art)
Remai Modern

Tarah Hogue is a curator, writer and cultural worker, newly based in Saskatoon. She is Curator of Indigenous Art at Remai Modern, and co-chair of the Indigenous Curatorial Collective. [MOU1] She previously held positions at the Vancouver Art Gallery, grunt gallery, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery.

Her exhibitions include An apology, a pill, a ritual, a resistance (2021) at Remai Modern, and Transits and Returns (2019–2020) and Ayumi Goto and Peter Morin: how do you carry the land? (2018) at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Originally from Red Deer, Alberta, Hogue is of Métis and settler descent.

WEST COAST AND YUKON

Joni Low
Independent Curator and Writer

Joni Low is an independent curator and writer whose research explores interconnection, intercultural conversations, sensory experience, and their attendant shifts in contemporary life. She has presented exhibitions across Canada at Galerie de l’UQAM in Montreal, the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown, and at the Burnaby Art Gallery, VIVO Media Arts, and Or Gallery, all in Metro Vancouver. Recent projects include What Are Our Supports?, Afterlives: Germaine Koh and Aron Louis Cohen, Charles Campbell’s Actor Boy: Travels in Birdsong, and Hank Bull: Connexion.

Low’s essays and criticism have been published in catalogues and journals such as Canadian Art, ESPACE art actuel, The Capilano Review and Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art. A member of Doryphore Independent Curators Society, she lives with gratitude on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh peoples. 

INTERNATIONAL

Adriano Pedrosa
Artistic Director
Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand

Adriano Pedrosa is Artistic Director of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP).

Prior to this, he was Curator of the São Paulo Pavilion at the 9th Shanghai Biennale (2012), Co-Curator of the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011), Curator of the 31st Panorama da Arte Brasileira-Mamõyaguara opá mamõ pupé at the Museu de Arte Moderna in São Paulo (2009), Artistic Director of the 2nd Trienal de San Juan (2009), Co-Curator of the 27th Bienal de São Paulo (2006), Curator of InSite_05 (San Diego Museum of Art, Centro Cultural Tijuana, 2005), Curator of Exhibitions and Collections at Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte (2000–2003), and Adjunct Curator of the 24th Bienal de São Paulo (1998).

At MASP, Pedrosa has organized numerous exhibitions, including an ongoing series dedicated to different histories: Histories of Childhood (2016), Histories of Sexuality (2017), Afro-Atlantic Histories (2018), Women’s Histories, Feminist Histories (2019), and Histories of Dance (2020).

INTERNATIONAL

Adam D. Weinberg
Alice Pratt Brown Director
Whitney Museum of American Art 

During a career that has included senior positions with the Addison Gallery of American Art, the American Center in Paris, and the Walker Art Center, Weinberg has curated numerous thematic exhibitions, as well as solo exhibitions on artists ranging from Edward Hopper to Isamu Noguchi. Public art projects include works by Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik and Lorna Simpson and, in 2021, David Hammons’ Day’s End on the Hudson River waterfront.

Weinberg has authored many catalogues and essays on contemporary artists, has lectured widely, and has served on panels across North America and abroad. He currently sits on the boards and advisory committees of arts organizations from Rome to Doha.

Weinberg is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has received awards that include the Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2015, he was made an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government.