Sobey, Giller and the trajectory of Canadian Culture

This November has been a big month for Canadian talent, with the winners of both the Scotiabank Giller Literature Award and the Sobey Art Award being announced last week. These esteemed awards showcase artists and authors residing in Canada who reflect excellence, whilst hinting at fresh perspectives on the direction Canadian culture may take. Egyptian-Canadian author Omar El Akkad's novel What Strange Paradise, a haunting portrait of the depths of belonging, took home the top prize from the Scotiabank Giller Literature Award and artist Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory's fusion of tradition and innovation won her the Sobey Art Award. Both winners were awarded $100,000, international recognition, and the opportunity to continue with their influential practices on the world stage.

What can these two wins tell us about Canadian identity and the trajectory of Canadian culture? Though varying in subject matter, medium and scope, there are commonalities that can be examined between the winning works. As a cultural and art theorist, I am of the opinion that investigating these works in tandem may offer us a hint about what’s to come in the arts. 

Taken in separately, both the winning novel and artworks are memorable and striking. Omar's gripping novel centres on a young boy who is washed ashore amongst the wreckage that brought him away from his war-torn home of Syria, to an island paradise for holidaymakers. The young boy, who survives his journey despite all odds, meets a young girl who shares no common language with him, and yet is determined to save him. A tale set into motion by the refugee crisis, it peels back the layers of war and geopolitics to peer into the lived lives of those who have faced the unfathomable cruelties of violent displacement. Beyond this backdrop, it's also a story about friendship and resilience, the other side of the narrative that often tells of loss and suffering. 

Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Timiga nunalu, sikulu (My body, the land and the ice), 2016. Video, 6 min 28 s. Commissioned for #callresponse, grunt gallery, 2016. Shot and edited by Jamie Griffiths. Music by Chris Coleman and sung by Celina Kalluk. © Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory,

Not dissimilar in their depths but contrasting in its subject matter and outcome is Laakkuluk’s practice which melds moving image with performance to tell stories that speak to feminism, decolonisation, shared ownership and more. Her art, which won her first place for the 2021 Sobey Art Award, centres on uaajeerneq, a traditional mask dance practised by Inuit in Kalaallit Nunaat, otherwise known as Greenland. These performances marry elements of entertainment with ritual to produce a profoundly mesmerising event, and Laakkuluk employs it to speak of issues that stretch into contemporaneity. In the years of colonial violence and oppression, this practice was driven underground as Catholic missionaries deemed it to be demonic, resurfacing in the 1970s.

With these two divulging practices that intersect in few places, what can be understood about contemporary Canadian culture? And what can they tell us about what it means to be living in contemporary times? In In the Flow, by Boris Groys, it is said that to be truly contemporary is to be with the flow of time, not making a mark against the tapestry of history but to rather be within the tide of history itself. The contemporary, in this sense, does not yearn to be static and objective, an overarching ahistorical truth. Instead, it steps past the incredulity towards grand narratives, which is what philosopher Jean-François Lyotard attributes to post-modernity and sheds these narratives altogether. Contemporaneity is thus unchained, flowing and free.

Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Nannuppugut!, 2021. Polar bear skin, wooden frame, elasticated rope and projected video. Collection of the artist. © Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory. Photo: NGC

When thinking of these works in tandem, I’m reminded of being asked where I’m from upon visiting certain places. When I answer “Canada”, I’m sometimes met with the response, “but you don’t look Canadian”. For those of us who have lived in Canada, it is, of course, absurd to assume that to be Canadian is to look a certain way. With this in mind, I see the winners for the Scotiabank Giller Literature Award and the Sobey Art Award as the two poles of Canadian identity, between which a Eurocentric narrative has been prominent in the tens of decades previous. But that narrative is seeping away, being overtaken by a shift that presents itself as truly contemporary, flowing with the pace of history because it is history itself.

From this, we can surmise that decolonial projects maintain their importance, recognising and undoing the harm that history is wrought with. At the same time, there will be a continuation of understanding how migration has shaped the country, and indeed contemporary culture. Contemporary Canadian culture reaches towards a place that is at once pre-colonial and post-immigration, and in this reach, it will continue to produce art that is urgent and breathtaking, made for international consumption whilst re-establishing its own unique identity.