Nominations for the 2008 OAAG Awards are now being accepted. The Nominations Form is available for download here.

The deadline for nominations is May 15, 2008, at 5 pm.

Nomination Eligibility: Exhibitions, publications, education projects, and contributions by staff, contract employees, volunteers and corporate partners in association with Art Gallery, Affiliate Gallery, and Associate Organization member organizations of the Ontario Association of Art Galleries are eligible to be nominated. Business and Colleague members may nominate the work of Art Gallery, Affiliate Gallery, or Associate Organization members as above.

The 2008 OAAG Awards are scheduled to take place Friday, September 26, 2008 at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, 111 Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario.

This year, there are more ways to nominate your excellent work of the past 12 months (April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008). You may also choose to nominate the work of your OAAG Colleagues!

The ability to nominate your gallery's work for the OAAG Awards is one of the main benefits of your institution's membership in the Ontario Association of Art Galleries.

Check in with your OAAG designated representative to see how your gallery's nominations are coming along--we hope you will take advantage of as many nomination opportunities as you can!

New for 2008

- We've introduced a Visual Art Film Award.
- The Educator Awards have been expanded to three nomination categories.
- The Web Awards have been constituted separately to allow more ways to recognize your fantastic internet outreach to new audiences.
- And Jury One will have more ways to recognize excellent nominations to both the Exhibition Awards and Curatorial Writing Awards through additional Special Recognitions and Honourable Mentions.

We know the time you invest in your OAAG Award nominations is valuable.

This year, we are inviting up to 12 jurors into the assessment process. Juries are prepared well in advance of scheduled meetings with comprehensive packages that include all the elements of the nominations you provide. The jurying process takes approximately two months.

In our experience, the careful deliberations of OAAG juries are illuminating and produce surprising results. Commonly, as juries conclude, we hear over and over again how deeply impressive is the range and quality of work undertaken by public art galleries each year, and that, having just spent so much time with your nominations making difficult decisions, our jurors would welcome the opportunity to serve again.

We look forward to seeing your nominations.

Please contact Demetra Christakos if you have any questions about the OAAG Awards at (416) 598-0714.