Ingrid Jones, an independent curator, multidisciplinary artist and student in the Daniels Faculty’s Master of Visual Studies in Curatorial Studies program, is the recipient of this year’s Reesa Greenberg Curatorial Studies Award. 

Now in its ninth year, the award was established by the internationally renowned art historian, scholar and museums consultant Reesa Greenberg to recognize outstanding work by students in their first semester of graduate studies in the MVS Curatorial program. The award comes with a monetary prize of $5,000 and is adjudicated annually by the Faculty's visual arts and curatorial studies faculty.

“I feel honoured and very thankful to have won the award after a year of rigorous study,” Jones says. “I am in a fantastic cohort, and it feels great to be recognized by the jury and supported by my peers.”

This summer, Jones will be completing an unpaid internship in Europe as part of her degree, most likely at a gallery in Berlin. Next spring, she will be mounting her thesis exhibition. Both endeavours, she says, “will require a substantial amount of subsidizing. Like most of my cohort, I’ve applied for a few grants and await replies. That will determine how these [award] funds will be spent.”

With a background in design and creative direction, Jones’s curatorial practice encompasses a range of formats, including installation, media and collaborative projects, “to interrogate themes of marginalization and refusal.”

Past projects include the the 2009-2012 indie magazine Poor But Sexy, a 2021 collaborative project that blind-paired six interdisciplinary artists called DEALR, and a hybrid on-site and digital exhibition called Nostalgia Interrupted (2022). 

Jones has also developed master classes and lectures for Sheridan College and Toronto Metropolitan University on photographic best practices and design as a tool for innovation and activism, and has previously received grants, awards and recognition for her work from the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Design Exchange and the Toronto Short Film Festival. 

In its announcement of Jones’s Reesa Greenberg win, the Art Museum at the University of Toronto described her first-semester MVS work as “exceptional.”

As well as the annual monetary award, Greenberg’s donation supports an additional biannual award of $10,000 for students in the MVS Curatorial program to pursue international travel or a paid internship position.