posted September 23, 2010

Toronto artist Kristen Fahrig awarded 2010 Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award by the Canada Council, for her work at MacGregor Park

Toronto, Ontario... Professional sculptor, educator and cultural animator Kristen Fahrig announced today that she is the winner of the 2010 Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for Integrated-Arts, receiving a monetary prize in the amount of $15,000 from Canada Council.

Kristen Fahrig, originally from Ottawa, received this award for her contribution to community collaborations in Toronto’s west end, Harbourfront Centre and MacGregor Park, where she is currently artist-in-residence. In this process she brings together professional artists of a variety of genres to work with people of all ages and backgrounds, to create collective works of art.

In 2008, Fahrig created the finale of Harbourfront Centre’s water festival Luminat’eau: Carnival H2O. She designed a 14’ sculpture of a woman that gazed out over the lake, her arms outstretched and holding a vessel of water. This figure was the centre piece of an integrated art performance that combined visual art, narrative, ritual, cross cultural expressions, circus and community performance in honour of the immense power of the Great Lakes. This public performance, involving 300 people, including performers, artists and volunteers, was then translated into a small urban park setting where Kristen has been artist in residence since 2004.

Following a successful career in theatre costume production, Fahrig developed her talent and crafts in other artistic disciplines, including a Neighbourhood Legacy Project, reclaiming deserted and rundown public parks. This resulted in permanent installations; collective artworks of over 700 people in four urban parks (MacGregor Park, Sorauren Park, Dufferin Grove Park, Maszerik-Cowen Park). In 1992 she was among a group of four artists who responded to the lack of relevant, accessible cultural institutions in the City of York, founding a storefront art centre, ArtStarts Neighbourhood Cultural Centre. As a cultural animator she developed the first youth program, FashionRap, promoting healthy relationships, juxtaposing and merging two very different forms of youth culture. In 2003 she developed The Urban Infusion project after being approached by Dufferin Mall to develop a program for troubled youth who were hanging around the mall. This project brought homeless, out of school youth, students from local high schools and college programs, as well as professional artists together in an explosion of cross cultural ideas and designs that were performed and exhibited in the Mall.

As an independent artist she has explored the idea of wearable art; her oeuvre covers a broad cultural and thematic range from environmental statements to the seduction of technology as it embraces the human body. Her work has been exhibited in Vancouver Museum, the foyer of the Toronto Stock Exchange, the foyer of the City of York’s City Hall, the foyer of the National Arts Centre, and the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, and other venues across Canada. She is currently creating a series of figurative sculptures in forged steel and cast bronze.

The Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award originated from a generous bequest to the Canada Council for the Arts in 1967. Until 2004, a regular grant for an established artist and an additional award of $4000 were given to up to three Canadian artists in the fields of music or visual arts. Since 2005, seven awards are given annually in the disciplines of music, dance, theatre, visual arts, media arts, writing and publishing and inter-arts. Awards are chosen through a process which involved nominations by the peer assessment committees of the Grants to Professional Artists program. The winning candidates are considered to be the most outstanding mid-career artists of those nominated.

For more information on Kristen Fahrig’s work log on to www.kristenfahrig.com.