Call for nominations for City of Vancouver's 2015 Mayor's Arts Awards
If there's an outstanding local individual in the arts who you think deserves recognition, now's your chance to submit their name for special civic honours.
The City of Vancouver's 2015 Mayor's Arts Awards is calling for nominations to be submitted before noon on July 3.
Artists in various artistic categories are chosen by juries for significant contributions, achievements, leadership, and support of Vancouver's cultural community.
The arts categories include craft and design, culinary arts, dance, film and new media, literary arts, visual arts, public art, community-engaged arts, theatre, and music.
Honourees are also chosen in the categories of business support, philanthropy, volunteerism, arts board member of the year, and lifetime achievement.
What's more, each artistic category nominee then selects an emerging artist in their discipline to be recognized.
Past recipients include photographer Stan Douglas, visual artist Myfanwy MacLeod, Videomatica owner Graham Peat, Blue Water Café executive chef Frank Pabst, dancer Alvin Erasga Tolentino, and percussionist Sal Ferreras.
Some of the requirements stipulate that nominees must have a history of work related to the City of Vancouver; have lived here while attaining significant artistic success over the past five years; and have achieved Vancouver public, private, educational, and peer recognition.
Unfortunately, neither posthumous nominations nor self-nominations are accepted.
Nominations, which require two nominating parties and a brief statement about why the individual deserves to be recognized, can be submitted by filling out a form online.
The awards will be presented on November 12 at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre.
Comments
2 Comments
Seriously?!?
Jun 5, 2015 at 7:48pm
The most artistic endeavour in Vancouver over the last number of years has been how Vision use taxpayer funds in an ever increasing amount to run the finest civic propaganda machine in the ho story of the city. The art is having a compliant media that supposedly includes a range of opinions yet is happy posting press releases from city hall with little change. The art is having folks eager to write stories on non-issues like Vancouver's "Bird of the Year" or other fluff to fill space. The art is doing far more for the 1% of the city than the NPA ever could and knowing the media will still parrot the declaration that the NPA is for "rich white men." Now the latest legend is that the city is going to shut down Burrard Bridge for some "yoga event" but somehow the Straight thinks it is about the Premier rather than the mayor.
independent stage producer
Jun 6, 2015 at 8:57am
more awards like this please! More support from the city for local artists! We will not be a boring city if we support the arts to the same levels as New York and Europe. Live theatre, writing, music, dance and visual art are the lifeblood of modern culture.
Film is by its nature an international art form and should not receive the highest levels of civic funding ahead of other local art forms, as it does today. Film products (the movies and shows they make) are not exclusively presented in Vancouver, and therefore provide no culture points to our city. Our current civic leaders think that spending millions of dollars on American film productions is somehow adding culture. It is actually destroying our culture and replacing it with American culture.
I am all for supporting local film-makers and local film festivals that give Vancouver artists a voice. But big Hollywood productions are nothing more than employment for film crews and background performers, they do not give voice to our culture or promote the arts. These film initiatives, grants, tax cuts etc should be considered solely for economic reasons.
However, having recently attended city hall meetings on these issues, I can tell you that the US Film industry is selling our politicians on the idea that they are promoting Arts and Culture by giving away money to US Film productions, simply because they hire Canadian gaffers and production crews. The US Film industry has set up Canadian shill organizations (Like the Motion Picture Production Industry Association of BC). Holding a boom mic or pointing a camera where you are told does not qualify these people as artists. The workers on the factory floor at Ford Motors dont decide what vehicles to make.
Film is great, but our tax dollars (however few of them there are) that are ear-marked for culture should be spent on Culture that is IN Vancouver...imagine!
/rant