Vtape’s New Governor General’s Award Winners for Visual & Media Arts

Vtape artist Marjorie Beaucage and Vtape Board of Directors member Michelle Jacques join 33 other artists whose works are in distribution at Vtape who have received the award for Visual and Media Arts since its inception in 1999.

Previous Vtape-distributed artists who are GG winners include: FastWÜRMS (2023); Bonnie Devine, Cheryl L’Hirondelle (2021); Deanna Bowen, Dana Claxton, Ruth Cuthand, Jorge Lozano, Zainub Verjee (2020); Stephen Andrews, Marlene Creates, Ali Kazimi, Andrew James Paterson (2019); Midi Onodera (2018); Mike Hoolboom, Shelagh Keeley, Shelley Niro (2017); Jayce Salloum (2014); Gordon Monahan (2013); Margaret Dragu, Jan Peacock (2012); Barbara Sternberg (2011); Tom Sherman (2010); Nobuo Kubota (2009); Tanya Mars, Eric Metcalfe (2008); Vera Frenkel (2006); Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak, Paul Wong (2005); Eric Cameron, Istvan Kantor, John Oswald (2004); and Tom Dean and Jamelie Hassan (2001).

Marjorie Beaucage is a Two-Spirit Métis Auntie, filmmaker, “art-ivist” and educator, a land protector and a water walker. Born in Vassar, Manitoba to a large Métis family, Marjorie has dedicated her life’s work to creating social change, working to give people the tools for creating possibilities and right relations. For Marjorie, story is medicine. Her more than 40 films hold space for difference, giving voice to those often unheard in mainstream stories. Her last project, Reducing the Harms of Colonialism, addressed harm reduction—six portraits of people who made it through. Her recent book, leave some for the birds, documents her own movements for justice. 

Michelle Jacques is a visual arts curator who works to create new points of entry to the museum space. Her recent work includes “Meanwhile, Anytime: Short Reflection on the History of Black Artists at the AGO,” which was part of Moving the Museum: Indigenous + Canadian Art at the AGO, co-edited by Wanda Nanibush and Georgiana Uhlyarik (2023), and Denyse Thomasos: just beyond, co-produced by Remai Modern and the Art Gallery of Ontario and curated with Sally Frater and Renée van der Avoird (2022). She was the recipient of the 2022 Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence. Over the course of her 30-year career, Michelle has held positions in museums across Canada, mentored emerging curators and taught art history and curatorial studies at several universities. Michelle grew up in Toronto, Ontario, and now lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where she is the Director of Exhibitions and Collections and Chief Curator at Remai Modern.