2024 Awards

2024 Labour Arts Awards recipients:

The Artist Award for Excellence in Contribution to the Labour Movement

for an artist, working in any artistic discipline (e.g. visual arts, writing, performance, music, etc.), who has significantly captured the values of the labour movement in their work: Emily Jung and Amanda Lin, of Labour in the Arts, for their project showing the challenges of arts workers in Ontario

Emily Jung and Amanda Lin are members of Labour in the Arts (LIA)— a conceptual artsworker collective that aims to bring power back to workers, so that workers can shape and inform how we navigate our workplaces and the industry as a whole. The collective’s first project focuses on the lived experiences of artworkers, asking questions like: What do artworkers need? What realities are they facing? How can artworkers build a world outside of the funding structures and achievements that we understand to be benchmarks for success? On May 15, 2024, LIA published an open letter to the performing arts sector asking: What is the future of a performing arts sector that is afraid to condemn genocide and ethnic cleansing? Within weeks, the letter was signed by 470 artworkers in the performing arts sector across Canada, calling on institutions to not be neutral, to not subject artworkers to censorship, marginalization, quiet firing, and discrimination for political activism, because art is inherently political.

The Activist Award for Excellence in Contribution to Labour Arts

for an activist who has promoted and incorporated labour arts in their activism: Susana P. Miranda and Franca Iacovetta for their book “Cleaning Up: Portuguese Women’s Fight for Labour Rights in Toronto

“Cleaning Up: Portuguese Women’s Fight for Labour Rights in Toronto” by Susana P. Miranda and Franca Iacovetta uncovers the little-known, surprisingly radical history of the Portuguese immigrant women who worked as night-time office cleaners and daytime “cleaning ladies” in postwar Toronto. Drawing on union records, newspapers, and interviews, feminist labour historians Susana P. Miranda and Franca Iacovetta piece together the lives of immigrant women who bucked convention by reshaping domestic labour and by leading union drives, striking for workers’ rights, and taking on corporate capital in the heart of Toronto’s financial district. Susana P. Miranda is an independent scholar with a PhD in history from York University. The author of scholarly articles on Portuguese cleaners in Toronto, she currently works for the Ontario Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. A public historian, she is co-founder of the Portuguese Canadian History Project, which collects, preserves, and disseminates material related to the Portuguese in Canada. She lives in Toronto. Franca Iacovetta is a retired but still active University of Toronto historian whose award-winning scholarship has dealt with such subjects as immigrant militancy, Cold War Canada, women’s pluralism, oral history, and transnational radicalism. Franca was part of the group of unionists, cultural workers, and labour educators who founded the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre (1995) and served on its board. She has participated in adaptations of her collaborative work on wartime internment, intimate partner violence, and cleaners’ activism into documentaries, plays, and a film. She is a member of the Rise Up Feminist Digital Archive collective and co-writing a book, with Cynthia Wright, on Remembering Emma Goldman in Toronto.

The Traditional Labour Arts Award

for the creative design and use of a quilt, banner, badge, button, placard, or apparel, etc., to promote labour solidarity: OPSEU Local 535, for their artistic approach to labour action at the AGO. It’s rare to see “real” art on a strike line, but this was it.

OPSEU/SEFPO L535 at the Art Gallery of Ontario had a historic year. After years of low wages and precarious working conditions, the members rejected the employer’s final offer, and on March 26, 2024, 430 staff at the AGO went on strike. After 10 months of negotiations including a month on the picket line, they ratified an agreement. The picket line itself was a form of performance art. The members created colourful and creative picket signs. They also worked with OPSEU/SEFPO Videographer Anna Jover to make innovative TikTok videos that highlighted their cause and went viral. Members of the Local include assistant curators, archivists, food and hospitality staff, researchers, technicians, carpenters, electricians, instructors, designers, visitor services staff, and more. Many of these members are artists themselves, who contribute to the cultural fabric of Toronto.

The Labour Creative Maverick Award 

for an unusual and creative use of the arts to promote workers’ rights: Aquil Virani for the artwork he created as a gift to members of OPSEU/SEFPO Local 535 at the AGO to help build internal morale and public support for the workers in their negotiations. 

Aquil Virani is an artist of Indian and French heritage. His collaborative projects integrate public participation into the creative process, empowering community members to express themselves freely and be heard. In 2022, he served as the first ever national artist-in-residence at the Canadian Museum of Immigration. Virani’s work has been supported financially by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council, in addition to the International Centre of Art for Social Change, the Silk Road Institute, and the Michaelle Jean Foundation, among others. Watch videos and learn more at aquil.ca.

The Labour Organization Award for Excellence in Contribution to Labour Arts

for a labour organization that has made outstanding use of the arts to engage their membership and/or the community: Labour4Palestine – for not only creating art, but also mixing in a healthy dose of education, while militating for an end to war and genocide.

Labour for Palestine – GTA is part of Labour for Palestine Canada – a network of labour activists who stand in solidarity with the struggle of Palestinian workers and people. Labour for Palestine recognizes the important role that unions can play in support of justice for Palestinians, just as the labour movement did in the case of the struggle for justice in South Africa. To that end, Labour for Palestine works with like-minded individuals, community groups and organizations to further their goals, including in the arts and culture sector. Labour for Palestine – GTA recognizes that the arts are essential for building movements and that arts and cultural workers must be included among their ranks.

The Min Sook Lee Award for Outstanding Contribution to Labour Arts

for an individual who has captured the values of the labour movement in their art and activism over many years: Don Bouzek, a legend in labour and labour arts, for his lifelong commitment to labour, the arts, and the solidarity he brings to all his work

Don Bouzek and the company he founded – Ground Zero Productions, participated in the inaugural Mayworks festival in 1985. Don Bouzek was also a member of the Mayworks Board of Directors in the early years. He later became a co-founder of the Alberta Labour History Institute, and has created live theatre productions and digital media works. Don has done important work for unions over his long career. He created 52 short videos, in both official languages, for a centennial website about nursing in Alberta and Saskatchewan. He has won several Canadian Association of Labour Media awards for his work with unions.Don’s 2019 film, “Great Labour Revolt, 1919” was created for the centennial Winnipeg Strike celebration.

This award is named in honour of Min Sook Lee, an activist-artist whose own contributions moved Mayworks Festival toward its current artistic vision to actively encourage representation of equity-seeking groups as audiences and artists. Lee also helped Mayworks focus on programming that engages new, non-arts audiences, and that challenges Eurocentric notions of art.