Isabelle Hayeur Wins the Prefix Prize

Isabelle Hayeur, “Border Wall, Tecate, California/Mexico,” 2024, from Borderlands. Courtesy the artist.

Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art is delighted to announce that the winner of the fifth annual Prefix Prize is Isabelle Hayeur. Primarily a photographer and videographer, Hayeur was born in Montréal and raised in a small town in the province of Québec, where she currently resides. The prize, which is juried by a panel of art and photography professionals, is a core programme of the Contact Photography Festival.

As the recipient of the Prefix Prize, Isabelle Hayeur receives an exhibition, a publication and a cash award of $5,000.00 CAD. The exhibition, which is presented at Urbanspace Gallery, features selections from Borderlands (2024), a series of forty photographs and a video that takes as its subject the contentious border between Mexico and the United States. Created primarily near Jacumba, California, an area well known for frequent illegal border crossings, the series depicts this locale in all its strange and surreal complexity. The border wall, both as an object and as a symbol, plays a pivotal role. The associated publication P.S.–5.1, which is the eighth in this series of exhibition catalogues produced by Prefix ICA, features an essay by Scott McLeod. Exclusively digital and entirely free, it is available for downloading from www.prefix.ca, effective May 30th.

The exhibition The Prefix Prize by Isabelle Hayeur, curated by Scott McLeod with the Prefix Prize jury, opens to the public on Friday, May 2, 2025, at Urbanspace Gallery, located at 401 Richmond Street West, Ground Floor, Toronto. Gallery hours are from Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm. Admission is free. The exhibition continues until Saturday, July 26, 2025.

With respect to public programmes, an informal talk by Gaëlle Morel, exhibItions curator at the Image Centre, Toronto Metropolitan University, will be held on Saturday, May 24, 2025, at 1pm at Urbanspace Gallery, 401 Richmond Street West, Toronto. Please note that registration is not required, but space is limited. Presented by Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art in partnership with the Contact Photography Festival and Urbanspace Gallery on the occasion of Doors Open Toronto.

For the fifth annual Prefix Prize, the jury also recognized two artists – Aaron Jones and Ethan Murphy – with honourable mentions. A Toronto-based artist who specializes in collage, Aaron Jones employs found images in the creative exercise of world building. Ethan Murphy, from St. John’s, Newfoundland, takes as his inspiration the self-sufficiency and resourcefulness of island communities. Each artist receives a cash award of $1,000.00 CAD.

The Prefix Prize is presented by Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art in partnership with the Contact Photography Festival and Urbanspace Gallery, and with the support of founding partner, Partners in Art.

About the Artist

Isabelle Hayeur, born 1969 in Québec, Canada, is an artist who is known for photography and media art, as well as for public art commissions, site-specific installations and artist books. In 2002, she obtained an MFA in Visual Arts from the Université du Québec à Montréal. Her work has been exhibited at the Canadian Cultural Centre (Paris), Casino Luxembourg: Forum d’art contemporain, the Image Centre, TMU (Toronto), Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, among others. Her work may also be found in more than thirty public collections, including the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa) and Vancouver Art Gallery. Named Artist of the Year in Lanaudière by the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec, she was recently awarded the Duke and Duchess of York Prize in Photography and the Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-career Award for Excellence in Visual Arts.

About the Prefix Prize

Launched in 2021, the Prefix Prize is awarded annually to a photographic artist of any nationality. Designed to honour artists at any stage of their careers who have yet to receive the recognition they deserve, the prize recognizes one artist with an exhibition, a publication, and a cash award of $5,000.00 CAD and up to two artists with honourable mentions consisting of cash awards of $1,000.00 CAD each.

The fifth annual Prefix Prize was juried by seven photographic arts professionals, including Yas Fakhr, designer, Underline Studio; Katerina Gregos, artistic director, EMST National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece; Marie-Josée Jean, executive and artistic director, Vox centre de l’image contemporaine, Montréal, QC; Scott McLeod, director and curator, Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art; Tara Smith, executive director, Contact Photography Festival; and Jennifer Young and Caroline Laxton, co-chairs, Project Development, Partners in Art.

The candidates for this year’s prize were nominated by Heather Anderson, curator, Carleton University Art Gallery; Noa Bronstein, assistant director, Art Museum at the University of Toronto; France Choinière, artistic and general direction, Dazibao; Mireille Eagan, curator of contemporary art, The Rooms; Betty Julian, senior curator, McMaster Museum of Art; Euijung McGillis, assistant curator, contemporary art, National Gallery of Canada; Gaëlle Morel, exhibitions curator, The Image Centre, Toronto Metropolitan University; Lillian O’Brien-Davis, curator of collections and contemporary art engagement, The Goldfarb Gallery, York University; and Tara Westermann, gallery director, Smokestack.

The sixth annual Prefix Prize will be awarded in May 2026.

About Prefix ICA

Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art is a registered charitable organization, based in Toronto, that fosters the appreciation and understanding of contemporary photographic, media and digital arts through exhibitions, publications, public programmes and related activities.

Acknowledgements

For their support of the Prefix Prize, Prefix ICA gratefully acknowledges presentation partners, the Contact Photography Festival and Urbanspace Gallery, and founding partner, Partners in Art. Prefix also gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts.

For more information, please contact Prefix ICA at prize@prefix.ca.