NEWS RELEASE
ART GALLERY OF GUELPH
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The Art Gallery of Guelph (AGG) is pleased to announce that Dallas Fellini has been awarded the 2024 Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators. Created in 2012, the annual prize is awarded to a Canadian curator or curatorial team under 30 with the goal to support a resilient, sustainable, and inclusive arts sector in Canada while recognizing the crucial role played by exhibitions in expanding awareness and art histories. Fellini’s proposed exhibition, Some kind of we, was selected as the winning submission by this year’s Middlebrook Prize jury composed of 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, paralleled by a “distributed exhibition” that speaks to trans histories of pre- and early-internet activism and community-building in Canada.
Each year, the Middlebrook Prize recognizes and demonstrates the vital role of artistic expression in an era of ongoing and unprecedented economic, political, environmental, and social upheaval. While juror Alyssa Fearon noted the importance of the 2024 Middlebrook Prize exhibition’s emphasis “on t4t relationality and visibility,” for Renée van der Avoird, Fellini’s proposal highlights an “urgent topic with artworks that are compelling, moving, and impactful.” Juror Tarah Hogue noted the significance of the “distributed exhibition as a means of reaching trans audience members and reiterating the networks of support trans communities have created.” Some kind of we will be presented at the Art Gallery of Guelph from September through December, 2024.
Curator 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.
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