Toronto, June 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On June 17, OCAD University will award honorary doctorates to five outstanding and deserving individuals during its first in-person Convocation ceremony to be held since 2019.
“We are excited to recognize a group of exceptional individuals who have been catalysts in leading change in their respective domains. They are innovative thinkers who have challenged the status quo and inspired others to excel and pursue their passions,” says OCAD U’s President and Vice-Chancellor Ana Serrano.
The honorands will join 750 students from OCAD U’s three faculties and Graduate Studies who will be receiving their diplomas at Roy Thomson Hall. The morning ceremony will feature the installation of Ana Serrano as the University’s first BIPOC President and Vice-Chancellor and Jaime Watt as Chancellor.
Meet the 2022 honorary doctorate recipients:
- Rosalie Favell is a distinguished Métis artist with a creative practice that spans over 40 years who has achieved national and international acclaim. Favell has used photography, portraiture and painting to understand and represent her ancestry and identity in works that have been exhibited and collected nationally and internationally. Her major body of work, Facing the Camera (2008-18), is an extended project that celebrates the strength, resilience and talent of the Indigenous arts community. She is the recipient of the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award, Chalmers Arts Fellowship, Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award and Karsh Award.
- Michael Fukushima has produced more than 200 films, including three Oscar-nominated animation shorts during his 30-year career at the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada. He is being recognized for his immense impact on Canadian cinema, which includes co-founding Hothouse, the NFB’s flagship apprenticeship program for emerging filmmakers. An avid storyteller and relentless advocate for Asian and other marginalized filmmakers, Fukushima played a key role in diversifying animation by helping to make the NFB one of the first animation organizations to achieve gender parity.
- Anne (Annie) Koyama has played an instrumental role in launching the careers of visual artists as a publisher and as a philanthropist through Koyama Provides. By publishing a wide variety of publications, including comic books and larger graphic novels, she has nurtured the talent and advanced the careers of visual artists such as Fiona Smyth, Team Macho, Walter Scott, Yannick Desranleau & Choë Lum and Rokudenashiko. Her numerous achievements have been recognized by the Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards Association (Joe Shuster Award) and the Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame (Doug Wright Award).
- Judy Matthews is an urban planner, activist and philanthropist. A seasoned expert and invaluable resource in public private partnerships, she strongly believes in the role not-for-profit organizations play in civic life. She is being recognized for her outstanding leadership in realizing an impressive variety of urban renewal projects that have enriched Toronto and the lives of many Torontonians.
- Norman Triplett White is Canada’s leading visionary in the field of electronic and robotic art. Since exhibiting his first groundbreaking electronically-based work in 1969, the internationally celebrated media artist has helped to establish Toronto as a world leader in media art production. Norman Triplett White has influenced and inspired generations of media artists, in part through his involvement in developing the Integrated Media program at OCAD University, which teaches electronics, mechanics and computer programming. He received the 2018 Digifest Pioneer Award in recognition of his lifetime achievement of innovation in art. In 1990, he was the recipient of an award of distinction at the Prix Ars Electronica, the world’s most time-honoured media arts competition.
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For more information, contact Natalie Pavlenko or Karen McCarthy below.
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