2024 Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators Awarded to Dallas Fellini
The 12th annual prize has been awarded to emerging curator Dallas Fellini. Their proposed exhibition, Some kind of we, has been selected as the winning submission and will be presented at Art Gallery of Guelph from September to December 2024. The award was presented at a gala ceremony at Gladstone House in Toronto on March 26, 2024.
Created in 2012, the prestigious prize is awarded annually to an emerging Canadian curator. By supporting and mobilizing Canadian creative talent, the Middlebrook Prize aims to inspire positive social change through creativity in an era of ongoing and unprecedented economic, environmental, and cultural challenges. Dallas joins a growing cohort of leaders in Canadian visual arts now numbering 15 Middlebrook Prize winners.
Jury Response
This year’s Jury comprises:
- Alyssa Fearon (Director/Curator at Dunlop Art Gallery),
- Tarah Hogue (Curator of Indigenous Art, Remai Modern), and
- Renée van der Avoird (Associate Curator of Canadian Art, Art Gallery of Ontario)
Fellini’s curatorial work explores trans histories and futures, the role that the archive plays in constructing trans realities, and the function of art in community and social practice. Some kind of we features works that approach or incorporate t4t sensibilities, emphasizing networks of trans relationality, self-representation, cross-generational inheritance, and desire and love between trans people. t4t is a shorthand that emerged in the early 2000s, used in Craigslist “personals” by transgender and transsexual people who were prioritizing relationships with other trans people. The exhibition will feature video works by Mirha-Soleil Ross in collaboration with Xanthra Phillippa MacKay, and B.G-Osborne with Benjamin Da Silva, as well as a print project by Cleopatria Peterson, parallelled by a “distributed exhibition” that speaks to trans histories of pre- and early-internet activism and community-building in Canada.
Curator’s Biography
Dallas Fellini is a curator, writer, and artist living and working in Toronto. Their research is situated at the intersection of trans studies and archival studies, interrogating the compromised conditions under which trans histories have been recorded and considering representational and archival alternatives to trans hypervisibility. Dallas is currently pursuing a Master of Visual Studies in Curatorial Studies at the University of Toronto and holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from OCAD University. They have curated exhibitions and screenings for Gallery 44, Vtape, Trinity Square Video, Xpace Cultural Centre, Hearth, Riverdale Hub Gallery, the Jackman Humanities Institute, and the Art Museum at the University of Toronto. Dallas is a cofounder of Silverfish, an arts publication devoted to interdisciplinary collaboration, skill-sharing, and cultivating sustained dialogue between emerging artists and writers
Thank You
Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators is made possible through the support of Middlebrook Social Innovation Fund at Centre Wellington Community Foundation, Musagetes Fund at Guelph Community Foundation, and private donations.
