The Mayworks 2023 Labour Arts Awards Gala celebrated the achievements of artists and activists.
2023 Award Recipients
The Min Sook Lee Award for Outstanding Contribution to Labour Arts
Lorraine Endicott, longtime Editor/Publisher of Our Times magazine
The Artist Award for Excellence in Contribution to the Labour Movement
Ruben “Beny” Esguerra, multi-instrumentalist/producer, spoken-word poet, arts educator and community worker
The Activist Award for Excellence in Contribution to Labour Arts
Gabriel Allahdua, author of Harvesting Freedom: The Life of a Migrant Worker in Canada
The Traditional Labour Arts Award
KAIROS Blanket Exercise (KBE)
The Labour Creative Maverick Award
The Drag Queen Community and CUPE Toronto Public Library Workers – for Drag Queen Story Hour Performances
The Labour Organization Award for Excellence in Contribution to Labour Arts
Migrant Rights Network – Ontario and Justice 4 Workers
Award categories
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.
The Activist Award for Excellence in Contribution to Labour Arts
For an activist who has promoted and incorporated labour arts in their activism.
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.
The Labour Creative Maverick Award
For an unusual and creative use of the arts to promote workers’ rights.
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.
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. 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.
