Congratulations to the 2024 Labour Arts Awards recipients!
Learn more about our sold out 2024 Labour Arts Awards Gala
Established in 2012, the Labour Arts Awards recognize artistic contributions to the labour movement.
Award recipients are honoured at an annual Gala where the community comes together to share a meal, enjoy live music and celebrate.
Nominations for the 2025 Labour Arts Awards will open in the spring.
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.
Who can be nominated?
The Mayworks Labour Arts Awards recognise the contributions of individuals or organisations in Ontario who produced artistic work in service of the labour movement in 2023/24 that is relevant to the category for which they are being nominated. In the case of the Min Sook Lee Award, nominees should have multi-year history of contributing to labour arts as an artist and activist and do not need to reside in Ontario.