2024 Cultural Leaders Legacy Arts Awards Recipients
The 2024 Cultural Leaders Legacy Arts Awards were announced at the Celebration for the Arts hosted by Mayor Gondek on Friday, October 4 at the Jack Singer Concert Hall. The Celebration for the Arts included an onstage presentation featuring emcee Karla Marx and more than 200 local performers as well as a video announcing the award winners.
This year, 56 outstanding artists and organizations were nominated, representing just some of the artistry that vitalizes our city every day. The Cultural Leaders Legacy Arts Awards are one way of recognizing artistic accomplishment and community impact.
The Cultural Leaders Legacy Arts Awards are a legacy of Calgary’s year as a Cultural Capital of Canada in 2012. Each award is funded by a contribution from a local philanthropist or organization with each recipient receiving a $5,000 cash prize. We thank the benefactors, nominators and juries of these awards, and congratulate all the nominees and 2024 award recipients.
The ATB Powering Possibility Through the Arts Award recognizes and supports organizations who are committed to enriching Calgary through arts programming that power possibilities for the local creative community. The award is intended to allow a presenting body the ability to continue their work and expand their impact in the arts and culture community. Award recipient Immigrant Council for Arts Innovation connects and engages newcomers and immigrant artists and arts professionals to the existing arts community for professional engagement through mentorship and professional development.
The Calgary Catholic Immigration Society New Canadian Artist Award was established to recognize that artists from all parts of the world enrich Calgary’s arts sector. This award recognizes and supports an individual artist whose cultural background and relatively recent arrival to Canada result in communication challenges, difficulties in transferring relevant credentials, and isolation from Calgary’s arts community. The award intends to help these artists pursue their artistic work and connect with the institutions and support networks that are available to all Calgary artists. The winner of this award also receives a paid residency courtesy of Calgary Public Library. Award recipient Han Sungpil spotlights Canada’s most significant environmental issues of increasing wildfires and melting glaciers. His work serves as an amplifier to the public to raise environmental awareness.
The Legacy of Doug and Lois Mitchell Outstanding Calgary Artist Award was established to honour artists who are lauded for their work in national and international arenas and choose to make Calgary their home. Regardless of career length, these artists are acknowledged by their peers around the world for the calibre of their work and their contributions to the arts. They are innovators who have significantly enriched artistic discourse in Canada. The winner of this award also receives a one-week, self-directed residency in Banff Centre’s Leighton Artist Studios. Award recipient Paulo da Costa broadens the discussion of patriarchy’s cost. In lyrical prose he seeks social change the way water changes rock — with a soft voice and endless purpose.
The Mamdani Arts Leadership Award recognizes and rewards the integral role of board members who lend their expertise, talent and time to supporting the work of arts organizations and festivals that make Calgary a vibrant and creative city. This award honours an arts volunteer board member who goes above and beyond to support the logistics, programming, operation and/or culture of the organization(s) they choose to support. Award recipient Suneetha Alokam is a dedicated arts leader with the ability to connect different arts communities. She has a vision to promote multiculturalism, diversity and inclusion and has a passion for creating a platform for local talent connecting to cultural roots.
The RBC Emerging Artist Award was established to recognize up-and-coming Calgary-based artists. The award recognizes that a thriving cultural community includes artists who choose to live and build their careers in Calgary from the outset. The intent of the award is to bring recognition and awareness to outstanding artists in the early phases of their careers. Award recipient Kamika Bianca Guerra-Walker is committed to using her talents as a multidisciplinary artist to aid the city’s unhoused population and foster the BIPOC arts community in Calgary.
The Rozsa Foundation Emerging Arts Manager Award is intended to honour an early career arts administrator who is doing noteworthy work, both within the organizations that they are working for, but also in the broader community. The recipient also receives no-cost entry into the Rozsa Arts Management Program (RAMP). Award recipient Sue-Shane Tsomondo is being recognized for her transformative leadership at M:ST Performative Art Society during the company’s critical period of transition.
TD Bank Group is very proud to sponsor the Indigenous Artist Award and to recognize this year’s winner Mackenzie Brown. This award was created to recognize the contributions of Indigenous artists, crafts peoples, and knowledge keepers to Calgary. The winner of this award also receives a paid residency courtesy of Calgary Public Library. “My name is Kamamak, or Mackenzie in English. As a young girl I was taught about balance. The balance between traditional and contemporary. This is how I live my life — with a moccasin in both worlds.” — Mackenzie Brown
You’ll find more information about the event and a video presentation of the arts awards here.
Thank you to all the benefactors whose generosity makes these awards possible: ATB Financial, Calgary Catholic Immigration Society, the Rozsa Foundation, Riaz Mamdani and Strategic Group, RBC, TD Bank Group and the Honourable Lois E. Mitchell. We also thank the Central Public Library and Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity for their support through artist residencies for the New Canadian Artist, Indigenous Artist, and The Legacy of Doug & Lois Mitchell Outstanding Artist Award winners. And we acknowledge and thank the Rozsa Foundation for including a spot in their Rozsa Arts Management Program (RAMP) for the winner of the Emerging Arts Manager Award.
Learn more about the Cultural Leaders Legacy Arts Awards here.
