Congratulations to long-serving Vtape board member Andrea Fatona, the 2025 recipient of the Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Curatorial Excellence. An influential curator, critic, mentor, and Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair in OCAD University’s Faculty of Art and Graduate Studies, Andrea is also the founder of The Centre for the Study of Black Canadian Diaspora. We are so happy to see her recognized for her many years of leadership, incisive curatorial interventions, and unflagging support for artists!

Andrea Fatona is of Jamaican and Yoruba descent. She was born in Birmingham, England and moved to Toronto from Jamaica in the late 1970s. She is an independent curator and an associate professor at OCAD University. Fatona is concerned with issues of equity within the sphere of the arts and the pedagogical possibilities of art works produced by ‘other’ Canadians in articulating broader perspectives of Canadian identities. Her broader interest is in the ways in which art, ‘culture’ and ‘education’ can be employed to illuminate complex issues that pertain to social justice, citizenship, belonging, and nationhood. She is the recipient of awards from Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Fatona is a Canada Research Chair Tier 2 in Canadian Black Diasporic Cultural Production and the founder of the Centre for the Study of Black Canadian Diaspora, OCAD U. 

Photo credit: Bideme Oloyede. Courtesy of the Hnatyshyn Foundation.