The Ontario Arts Council (OAC) is proud to announce the winners of the 2025 Ontario Arts Council Indigenous Arts Award: laureate Maria Hupfield and emerging artist laureate Alexis Nanibush-Pamajewong. The award recognizes and celebrates the outstanding contributions of Indigenous artists and arts leaders who have significantly enriched Ontario’s arts landscape.
Maria Hupfield (Anishinaabe/Wasauksing First Nation) will be presented with this prestigious award – which comes with a $10,000 prize, a framed certificate, and an Indigenous-designed blanket – on Saturday, January 17, 2026, at a special event taking place at the Campbell House Museum in Toronto.
Portrait of artist Maria Hupfield, Always Creating Energy, Triangle Photo Series, 2023. (Photo: Darren Rigo)
About Maria Hupfield
- Maria Hupfield has developed a body of work over the past two decades grounded in: performance, sound, sculpture and installation; a relationship to Anishinaabe culture; commitment to Native feminisms and collaboration; and a desire to embed performance within the exhibition space, opening up a space beyond fixed, colonial definitions of art.
- She has exhibited and performed extensively across North America, including at the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the New York Museum of Art and Design, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York City, among others.
- Since 2019, she has held the position of Canada Research Chair in Transdisciplinary Indigenous Art, leading exploratory research at the Indigenous Creation Studio. She is assistant professor of Indigenous Digital Arts and Performance at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) and the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.
- Maria is co-founder and co-owner of Native Art Department International, a collaborative project started in 2016 with her husband, artist Jason Lujan.
- Among her many accolades, Maria is a recent recipient of the 2025 Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship (Indianapolis), was named as the inaugural ArtworxTO Legacy Artist in Residence with the City of Toronto in 2022, the inaugural 2020-2022 Borderlands Fellow at The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School (New York City) and the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands at Arizona State University, and the Hnatyshyn Mid-Career Award for Outstanding Achievement in 2018.
- Based in Toronto, Maria Hupfield is an urban-off-reservation member of the Anishinaabek People belonging to the Wasauksing First Nation in Ontario (Huron Robinson Treaty).
Maria Hupfield with the piece Golden Dollar (Sacagawea), 2018. (Photo: Grégoire Féron)
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The assessors were unanimous in their selection of Maria Hupfield as the 2025 Ontario Arts Council Indigenous Arts Award recipient. They said, “Maria has a spark that generates powerful curiosity. She wants to know more about others and is able to place herself in that history. Maria creates a balance between her artistic practice and her work in community. She is an influential force helping others to see their own artistic potential. Maria is inspirational.”
About the emerging artist laureate
The OAC Indigenous Arts Award also acknowledges and supports the many promising Indigenous artists who represent the future of Indigenous leadership in the arts in Ontario. As part of this award, Maria Hupfield has selected the interdisciplinary Indigenous artist Alexis Nanibush-Pamajewong as the emerging artist laureate. Alexis will receive a $2,500 prize, fostering continued growth and contribution to the arts in Ontario.
Alexis Nanibush-Pamajewong, BITE//Celestial\\BITE, 2024, featured in C Magazine. (Photo: Emília Nahdee)
- Alexis Nanibush-Pamajewong (she/they) is a two-spirit Anishinaabe interdisciplinary artist and curator from Shawanaga First Nation (Robinson Huron Treaty).
- Alexis completed their Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) in the Indigenous Visual Culture program at OCAD University in Toronto and was the program’s 2024 medal winner. They also graduated from the Bealart program at H.B. Beal Secondary School in London, Ontario.
- Alexis’ artistic practice integrates performance, installation, photography, video and birch bark biting, and focuses thematically on Anishinaabe knowledge, love and the land.
- Their work has been exhibited by Toronto’s Nuit Blanche, Xpace Cultural Centre, OCAD University, Ignite Gallery, KPMG x MASSIVart and was featured in C Magazine.
- Alexis is currently the coordinator for Indigenous Public Arts Programming at Evergreen Brick Works.
About the award
- Established in 2012 by the OAC, the Ontario Arts Council Indigenous Arts Award recognizes the unique and significant contributions of Indigenous artists and arts leaders in Ontario. It is a $12,500 award program, with $10,000 awarded to the laureate, and $2,500 to the emerging artist or arts leader selected by the laureate.
- The 2025 jury included Inuit children’s book author and president of the Toronto Inuit Association Sarabeth Holden (Toronto); Anishinaabe photographer and 2018 laureate of the Ontario Arts Council Indigenous Arts Award Nadya Kwandibens (Toronto); and Métis composer, cellist and educator Karen Sunabacka (Waterloo).
- Past recipients of the award include Dan Commanda (2024), Penny Couchie (2023), and Shirley Cheechoo (2022). Click here for a full list of past recipients.
- To date, the OAC has awarded $170,000 through this award program to recipients from 17 communities.
About the Ontario Arts Council
OAC is Ontario’s primary funding body for the arts. Since 1963, the OAC has fostered the creation, production, and presentation of art for the benefit of all Ontarians. Through its grant programs and services, the OAC supports professional artists and arts organizations across the province, enriching the lives of Ontario’s residents and strengthening the social, cultural, and economic vitality of our communities.