Announcing the Five Recipients of the 2025 Emerging Digital Artists Award

EQ Bank is pleased to announce the five recipients of the 2025 Emerging Digital Artists Award

Since 2015, the EDAA has celebrated the remarkable achievements of digital artists in Canada, supporting their continued development and showcasing their work to a range of audiences on a variety of platforms.

The 2025 EDAA recipients are:

Still Image: Eva Grant
Eva Grant is a Queer, St̓át̓imc-Eurasian filmmaker, curator, and new media artist based in Victoria, BC. Her world-building practice activates Land-based storytelling, research-creation, and speculative design to prototype decolonial and capacious futures informed by disability justice, Indigenous ontologies, and ecological sovereignty.

Moving Image: Alex Gibson
Alex Gibson is a Barbadian Canadian interdisciplinary artist based on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (Vancouver, BC). They use images and archives as sites to examine queer spaces, temporalities, and architectures.

2D Interactive: Cadin Londono
Cadin Londono is a Colombian game developer born in Medellin, Colombia and based in Tio’Tia:ke (Montreal). His interest in coding began from a young age, watching his father code his own games in his free time. Cadin released his first videogame at age eighteen and is now busy creating videogames that look at life through an anticolonial lens.

Extended Reality: Laura Caraballo
Laura Caraballo is an interdisciplinary artist born in Bogotá and based in Tiohtià:ke [Montréal]. Her work explores the use of technology to create interactive, sensorial physical and virtual spaces that represent and engage communities in meaningful conversations.

3D Installation: Kahani Ploessl
Kahani (कहानी) Ploessl is a dimension-bending tech artist based in Markham, Ontario. Her work in generative, videogame, and installation art explores notions of the glitch and digital spiritualism. Guided by her Indian heritage, Kahani draws parallels between the cosmic philosophy of Hinduism and the pixelated manifestations of digital realms and avatar bodies.

The five recipients’ works were selected from over 130 submissions by emerging artists across the country, in recognition of their critical and creative approach to digital media. The shortlist was determined by a jury panel of invited artists, curators, and practitioners from the digital arts community— Lillian O’Brien Davis, Maxwell Lander, Rea McNamara, and Bomi Yook—together with the curatorial team at EQ Bank.

Learn more about their award-winning works here.

Each artist receives a $5,000 grand prize, in addition to a one-year subscription to Pilot Art List. The five award-winning works will be featured in a touring group exhibition starting at Gallery TPW, Toronto, January 7 – 31, 2026, and travelling to Art Windsor-Essex, Windsor, March 19 – June 28, 2026. The five works will also be included in a virtual exhibition produced in partnership with the MacKenzie Art Gallery in 2026. Lastly, one of the five recipients will have their work featured in BlackFlash Magazine in print and online.

Questions about the EDAA can be sent to edaa@eqbank.ca. For the latest information about the 2025 prize, follow us on Instagram: @edaa_eqb

About the Emerging Digital Artists Award
The Emerging Digital Artists Award is Canada’s award for critical experimentation in digital media, proudly presented by EQ Bank. Established in 2015, the EDAA has awarded over $200,000 to emerging artists and celebrated a range of screen-based practices including video, animation, virtual reality, game art, and web art.

About EQ Bank
EQ Bank is the digital banking platform launched in 2016 by Equitable Bank, Canada’s Challenger Bank™. As a future-ready financial institution, fostering innovation is at the heart of everything we do. We firmly believe in the benefits of open banking and continue to invest in technology to serve the changing financial needs of Canadians.

Images (left to right): Cadin Londono (photo: Mariana Chajon Oliveros), Eva Grant, Alex Gibson (photo: Jonah Bayley), Kahani Ploessl (photo: Zoe Mar), and Laura Caraballo; Artwork: Adrienne Matheuszik, Caldera, 2025