Announcing the 2023 SOAN Art Contest Winners
As part of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology’s ongoing anti-racism, decolonization, and Indigenization efforts, the Decolonization and Anti-Racism Committee held another art contest this year.
For the 2023 SocAnth Art Contest, the committee called on all the creative types among Sociology and Anthropology students, alumni, faculty, instructors, and staff to submit a piece of art created with anti-racism, decolonization, and/or Indigenization in mind.
We received a number of inspiring artwork submissions this year and are deeply appreciative of everyone who participated in the contest.
After a careful review of these works of art, the selection committee is pleased to share the top three.
First Place
The Art of Melanin – The Self by Maureen Lozano, Undergraduate Student (Sociology)
Maureen Lozano,
a fourth-year student studying
Sociology, has taken first place
in the 2023 SocAnth Art Contest with
The Art of Melanin – The Self
It is a piece that reclaims power and how I understand my identity and existence to dark matter and whiteness. This art symbolizes how I, as a racialized person, understand living a racialized life. I didn’t want to create art displaying melanin’s social consequences. But instead, an art that envisions power. The existence of the Self, not the art but as humans, is the art itself. Our melanin tells the stories, while the Self imagines the future.
Maureen Lozano
Maureen notes that “The Self represents the reclamation of power, identity, and justice.”
Second Place
Photo Excerpts from the photo-series project “Khawab” by Reyhab Patel,
Graduate Student (Ph.D, Sociology)
Reyhab Patel, a first year Ph.D student in Sociology has taken second place in the 2023 SocAnth Art Contest with
these excerpts from the photo-series project “Khawab”
The purpose of this creative project is to reimagine the inclusion of Muslim women into the realm of fictional storytelling. This project uses intersectional and decolonizing frameworks (such as Muslim-futurism) as basis to break barriers of technicalities and “what-ifs” that often exclude marginalized Muslim women in these spaces
Reyhab Patel
Reyhab notes that this project, which was inspired by current Ph.D research on Muslim-futurism, will be presented at an exhibition in Toronto later this summer!
Third Place
Bathed in Blood, a Legacy of Genocide by John A. Macdonald by K.A. Undergraduate Student (Anthropology)
K.A., a second year
undergraduate student
studying Anthropology,
has taken third place in
the 2023 SocAnth Art Contest with
Bathed in Blood, a Legacy of Genocide by John A. Macdonald
Canada’s history is dark and full of indigenous oppression, especially at the hand of John A. Macdonald. Often credited as a pioneer of residential schools and the Indian act, Macdonald’s legacy continues its reign on the backs of indigenous deaths and oppression. Yet he is still celebrated by many, both outright and within our institutions. Despite the growing number of unmarked children’s graves we continue to find at residential schools, he remains a fixture of Canadian currency. We must not allow his and Canada’s genocide to ever be ignored or reduced in this way. His legacy will forever be covered in the blood of the innocent that his policy and his institutions have killed.
K.A.
K.A. notes that “though striking in the presentation, the shock and recoil of the piece is still nothing considerably close to the pain of those lost and stolen.”