The winners of the 2021 Grantham Foundation for the Arts and the Environment awards are Anahita Norouzi and Clément de Gaulejac.

Creation Award — Anahita Norouzi

Anahita Norouzi is an Iranian-Canadian multidisciplinary artist based in Montreal. She holds a master's degree in visual arts from Concordia University. Her work investigates the condition of displacement in relation to notions such as statelessness, in-betweenness and hybridity. Her artistic methodology relies on arts-based research, integrating her studio practice into her research process, giving equal weight to both the visual and the theoretical. Her work includes photography, video, sculpture, installation, text and archival records.

For the past two years, in collaboration with the Research Centre on Biodiversity of the Université de Montreal, Anahita Norouzi has been developing a research project on the ecological, cultural and social dimensions of migration issues from the perspective of non-native plants that have emerged in Quebec in the continuation of migratory flows of populations.

The Grantham Foundation awards $10,000 to the artist, with a one-month residency at the Foundation.

Research Award — Clément de Gaulejac

Artist, illustrator and author of several books, Clément de Gaulejac holds a PhD (Études et pratiques des arts) from the Université du Québec à Montreal. His thesis is entitled You See What I Mean, Illustrations, Metaphors and Other Images that Speak. In recent years, environmental issues have been at the heart of de Gaujelac’s work. His concern is expressed artistically in the form of political posters and exhibitions (Les Naufrageurs, Centre Vox, 2015 and Les maîtres du monde sont des gens, Galerie UQO, 2019).  

As part of his month-long residency at the Grantham Foundation, based on publications such as those of Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, Vinciane Despret and Barbara Stiegler, Clément de Gaulejac will write a research paper aimed at highlighting, analyzing and questioning a number of visual images and metaphors used to represent the climate crisis.

The Grantham Foundation awards a $5,000 research grant to Clément de Gaulejac.   

Led by Johanne Lamoureux, chairholder of the Canada Research Chair in Civic Museology, the jury awarding the scholarships brought together the expertise of Sophie Bélair-Clément, artist and professor at the Université du Québec en Outaouais, Jean-François Bélisle, director and chief curator of the Musée d’art de Joliette, Suzanne Paquet, director, Department of Art History and Film Studies of the Université de Montréal and Bénédicte Ramade, art historian, researcher and independent curator specializing in Anthropocene issues.