Vancouver photographer wins $50K Scotiabank award

TORONTO – Korean-Canadian artist Jin-me Yoon has won the Scotiabank Photography Award.

In addition to $50,000, the honour nets the Vancouver photographer a solo exhibition at the Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival in May 2023 and a published book of her work, to be distributed worldwide.

Prize organizers note Yoon’s three-decade career examines themes including gender, sexuality, culture, citizenship and her relationship with her Korean heritage.

Scotiabank marketing officer Laura Curtis Ferrera touted Yoon’s “poignant art” for offering new perspectives on “transnationalism and environmentalism.”

Runners-up Shannon Bool of Comox, B.C. and Barbara Astman of Toronto each receive $10,000.

The annual Scotiabank Photography Award recognizes mid-to-late career artists and was co-founded by Scotiabank and Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky in 2010.

Yoon is also a visual art professor at Simon Fraser University and has had more than 200 solo and group exhibitions around the world.

Her work is in 17 public collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, Royal Ontario Museum, Vancouver Art Gallery and Seoul Museum of Art.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 16, 2022.