Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts Announces the 2025 Project Support Award Winners (Part 1)
Rita Daniel, President of the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts, recently announced the recipients of the 2025 TFVA Project Support Awards. TFVA committee members chose the following projects after researching and carefully considering many others. These awards provide support funding for visual arts activities within the GTA that demonstrate excellence, originality, creativity and artistic merit.
Congratulations to awardees whose work will impact Torontonians, artists, and the city’s visual arts scene. Since TFVA was formed twenty-seven years ago, they have supported 80 worthy projects within the GTA.
Founded in 1998, the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts is an independent, membership based, non-profit organization that promotes knowledge of the visual arts to its members through an extensive education program, and provides support and recognition for artistic achievement to artists and art organizations in the GTA and surrounding area.
TFVA awarded five Project Support Awards this year, and is proud to announce three of the five Project Support Awards:
Mercer Union to support Space, an existing billboard located on the east facade of the building directly facing Bloor Street. TFVA will be supporting the work of Toronto-based, emerging artist Ella Gonzales, and the educational opportunities surrounding her work. The exhibition will be from January 24 – June 12, 2025.
Mercer Union is a non-profit, artist-centered space for contemporary art in Toronto.
Image: Ella Gonzales, production still from Sleeve: A YEAR IN REVIEW, 2025. Courtesy the artist.
Mingei Film Archive, founded by Torontonian and ceramics educator, Marty Gross, for the restoration of a critical film on textile making in Japan. This new work, The Textiles of Okinawa, 1940, will be utilizing the only remaining copy of a rare 16mm film entrusted to him by the Japan Folk Crafts Museum about weaving and dyeing techniques, while incorporating his interviews with fabric artisan, Shukumine Kyoko, whom Japan has recognized as a Living National Treasure.
Marty’s mission for the Mingei Film Archive since 1970 was to interview artisans and restore and digitize old footage to create a documentary archive of 60 films. Mingei, or “the art of the people,” refers to folk crafts made for use in daily life. Marty is now expanding his core group of films on pottery-making to include textiles and papermaking.
Image: The Textiles of Okinawa, 1940, Mingei Film Archive.
Propeller Art Gallery for the Budding Curators Program 2025 to provide mentorship for two young and promising artists interested in curating activities. The main advantage of this initiative to art students is to offer them a true gallery experience and the opportunity to mount exhibitions under mentorship. The public exhibition will be from July 30 – August 17, 2025.
The Propeller Art Gallery is a not-for-profit artist-run co-operative and exhibition space. It was established in 1996 by dedicated Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) recent graduates, to create an affordable community art gallery for emerging artists and provide support in career building.
Image: Curator Selin with the two budding curators, Paige and Francis. Photo by Sharron Forrest.
Our thanks to the 2024-25 Project Support committee for their hard work, and congratulations to all the Project Support Award recipients.
Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts
Contact: Charlotte Durand: externalrelations@tfva.ca
Website: tfva.ca | Instagram: @tfva.ca
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