Accolades for the week of August 12

Richard DeMont, associate professor in the Department of Exercise Science, has been elected president of the Canadian Athletic Therapists Association (CATA) for a one-year term. CATA is a progressive not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion and delivery of the highest-quality care to active individuals through injury prevention, emergency services and rehabilitative techniques.

DeMont also acts as Concordia’s undergraduate program director of the Athletic Therapy program, which is one of only seven accredited programs in Canada. It was recently re-accredited for another four-year term.

David Devine, EMBA 88, has been named Canada’s new ambassador to Vietnam: Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird made the appointment July 12. Devine replaces Deborah Chatsis.

Devine first worked for the Government of Canada in 1975, when he joined the Department of Manpower and Immigration as a project analyst. His subsequent career included positions in both the private and public sectors.

In 1989, after obtaining his Executive MBA from Concordia’s Faculty of Commerce and Administration (now called the John Molson School of Business), Devine transferred to External Affairs and International Trade Canada, where he was part of the national team of negotiators for the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Most recently, Devine served as high commissioner in Guyana, ambassador to Suriname and Canadian representative to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

Laura Rokas-Bérubé, BFA 13, was named the Quebec regional winner of the 2013 BMO 1st Art! Invitational Student Art Competition for her piece, "Life’s a Beach."

The BMO Financial Group’s 1st Art! Invitational Student Art Competition celebrates the creativity of art students from post-secondary institutions across Canada. The national winner receives $10,000 and the regional winners each receive $5,000 for his or her artwork. All winning entries will be on display at the 1st Art! 2013 exhibition, held at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in October 2013. According to the jury, the winners for 2013 vividly demonstrate the excellence and promise of Canada’s newest generation of artists. 

Last year’s national winner, Mika Goodfriend, BFA 12, also hails from Concordia.

All three recipients of the 2013 Hnatyshyn Foundation’s Charles Pachter Prize for Emerging Canadian Artists have studied in the Department of Studio Arts at Concordia. They are Andréanne Godin, MFA 09, Kim Kielhofner, BFA 07, and current student Marlène Renaud-Bouchard.

The Charles Pachter Prize consists of three awards of $5,000 each to support an emerging visual artist under the age of 30 whose body of work incorporates specialized training, has a public presence and has received peer recognition. 

The recipients were chosen by Nicole Gingras, who is a part-time faculty member in the Department of Studio Arts and the 2012 recipient of the Hnatyshyn Award for Curatorial Excellence.

The Hnatyshyn Foundation is a private charity established by the late Ramon John Hnatyshyn, Canada’s 24th Governor General, to assist emerging and established artists, in all disciplines, with their schooling and training, and to promote to the Canadian public the importance of the arts in our society. Its programs are funded by donations from government, foundations, corporations and individuals.

Godin draws on different supports: paper, sometimes directly on gallery walls, and on surfaces or volumes she creates herself. She uses a wide range of materials, including graphite, colour pencil, watercolour, chalk and wool. Her ambitious yet ephemeral works are read as drawings-installations in which gestures and traces are magnified.

Kielhofner has been creating videos since 2006. She is the principal character in her works, several of which come close to a personal journal in which she records her perceptions, doubts, questions and insights. These images unfold as a series of photographic moments. The artist also makes reference to film, home movies and video clips.

Current MFA in Studio Arts student Renaud-Bouchard is an interdisciplinary artist whose work combines performance, art intervention, installation, sculpture and video. The notions of in-between, porosity and contamination of spaces and perceptions are of particular interest to her. She explores the connections between body and space, whether a studio, a gallery, a public place or a “natural” context.

Theatre performance student Sarah Marchand is one of eight young artists chosen to receive a $10,000 developing artist grant from the Hnatyshyn Foundation.

In adjudicating Marchand’s performance submissions, one jury member said, “Without question or doubt about this artist, we would highly endorse all support to secure her spot as a professional actress. She is full of risk and danger and her choice of material is far left of safe and centre. The variety is refreshing and her artist’s statement is breathtaking.” 

View Marchand’s performance in last year’s production of Peleus and Thetis at Concordia.

The Hnatyshyn Foundation began awarding annual grants in 2005. Each year, the Developing Artists Grants program presents eight $10,000 scholarships to exceptional young Canadians in post-secondary performing arts training programs.