Vanier students win 2025-2026 Art Acquisition and Photography Scholarships

Winners of the Vanier College Foundation Art Acquisition Scholarship

Created in winter 2017, the Vanier College Foundation Art Acquisition Scholarship aims to promote student success and provide a concrete opportunity for Vanier’s aspiring student artists to receive recognition for their work both in monetary terms as well as in exposure at the College. This $3,000 annual scholarship, made possible thanks to the generosity of the Vanier College Foundation, aims to encourage students to pursue their artistic passions and allows the College to amass a bank of art work that can be displayed throughout the Vanier campus and help showcase talent in photography, sculpture, drawing and painting. This year’s winners are:

Ava Katz, “The Bloodhound” is a poem inspired by the conceptual basis of my recently completed novella, Uni-form and follows the meditations of a girl who is frequently catcalled. Through this piece, I aim to explore how the perception of the female body as a uniform, sexual object takes its toll on women and girls.”

Edwin Drystan Njanjo Siako, “The Invisible - Voices Erased “, digital print. “In this work, I explore the people, histories, and systems of suffering that are often present around us but ignored. This series includes three printed designs: Against the Crowd, For My Profit, and Voices Erased.”

Eleni Kasidiaris, “Green Room Activities”, graphite pencil on paper. “Oftentimes, women’s issues and realities are brushed aside and I wish to create art that depicts women in a realistic manner whilst simultaneously showing the whirlwind of emotions that women face.”

Kaylee Bernardo, “Plato’s Cave: The Lie and The Bite”, watercolour on paper. “My work explores the relationship between truth and imagery. Our world is built upon images… Although they can facilitate our understanding, it is a double-edged sword, especially in our current day and age, where falsifying images is becoming increasingly more accessible.”

Kyla Medeiros Branco, “The Act of Looking”, graphite pencil on paper. “The inclusion of a self-portrait within the self-portrait introduces an intentional layer of meta- narrative and psychological depth. “

Rosalie Boyd, “Timeless”, photograph. “As an identical twin, searching for distinctions between myself and my sister was central to my upbringing and I have extended this instinct into the way I perceive and construct my visual environment.”

Winners of the Peter Gonda Memorial Scholarship for Photography

The Peter Gonda Memorial Scholarship for Photography, valued at $600, is awarded annually to any Vanier College student who demonstrates original photographic works. Peter Gonda passed away on August 20th 2016 at the age of 47. He was a Montreal-based artist, novelist and screenwriter. One of his main passions was photography. He travelled around the world and exhibited his photographs in London, Paris and Montreal. This year’s winners are: 

• 1st Prize $300, Khaled Abdallah,  Against Immensity / The Scale of Time
• 2nd Prize $200, Isabelle Tremblay, “Where Water Rests 
• 3rd Prize $100, Kevin Pelletier, Nostalgic Glow / Glistening Refraction

Congratulations to all these talented students.