The Yukon Prize
for Visual Arts

The 2021 Yukon Prize Finalists were selected by an independent jury of three arts professionals:  Gaëtane Verna, Director of The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto, Ryan Doherty, Chief Curator of Contemporary Calgary, and Candice Hopkins, an internationally known independent curator and a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation.

A 360^o video taken with a GoPro camera. Best viewed on a mobile device. Move your device as you view the video to change what you see!

Video: Mark Kelly, www.depthoffield.ca
Music: Spirit of Carving (DASH Remix), The Dakhká Khwáan Dancers & Dash

Ryan Doherty is a curator, writer and administrator who joined the staff of Contemporary Calgary as Chief Curator in 2019. He received his MA from the Centre for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in New York (2007) and his undergraduate degree at the University of Lethbridge (1997). He worked at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (SAAG) as Curator beginning in 2008 and as Director since 2013. He has curated a wide range of solo and group exhibitions across the county and has contributed to numerous catalogues and public programs. He has participated on multiple national juries including the Sobey Art Award and the RBC Canadian Painting Competition and recently spearheaded Field Trip: Art Across Canada, a national platform for collaborative arts engagement.

Candice Hopkins Candice Hopkins is an independent curator, writer and researcher. She is a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her writing and curatorial practice explores the intersections of history, contemporary art and indigeneity.

She works as senior curator for the 2019 Toronto Biennial of Art and was a part of the curatorial team of the Canadian Pavilion of the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019, featuring the work of the media art collective Isuma. She is co-curator of notable exhibitions including Art for New Understanding: Native Voices 1950s to Now; the 2018 SITE Santa Fe biennial, Casa Tomada; documenta 14 in Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany; Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Canada and Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years in Winnipeg, MB. Her writing is published widely and recent essays and presentations include “The Gilded Gaze: Wealth and Economies on the Colonial Frontier,” for the documenta 14 Reader, “Outlawed Social Life” for South as a State of Mind and Sounding the Margins: A Choir of Minor Voices at Small Projects, Tromsø, Norway. She has lectured internationally including at the Witte de With, Tate Modern, Dak’Art Biennale, Artists Space, Tate Britain, Yale University, Cornell University, and the University of British Columbia.