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Surrey school grad wins $10K emerging-artist prize from The Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver

Simranpreet Anand was selected from more than 50 nominees for Philip B. Lind Emerging Artist Prize
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Phil Lind (left) and Simranpreet Anand. (Photo: Alison Boulier via facebook.com/polygongallery)

Surrey-raised artist Simranpreet Anand has won another award for her work, this time from one of Canada’s most acclaimed photography and media art galleries.

At a ceremony in North Vancouver last week, The Polygon Gallery announced Anand as the winner of this year’s Philip B. Lind Emerging Artist Prize, which comes with a $10,000 cash and the opportunity to produce a project with the gallery.

Anand, a Sullivan Heights Secondary graduate, was selected from more than 50 other award nominees.

For seven years now, the Philip B. Lind Emerging Artist Prize has been awarded annually to an emerging B.C.-based artist working in film, photography or video.

Installation view of Simranpreet Anand’s “insatiable desires of a bourgeoisie, 2021,” at The Polygon Gallery’s The Lind Prize. Three woven dhurries. (Photo: Akeem Nermo)
Installation view of Simranpreet Anand’s “insatiable desires of a bourgeoisie, 2021,” at The Polygon Gallery’s The Lind Prize. Three woven dhurries. (Photo: Akeem Nermo)

The jury said Anand’s work “reminds us of the expansive possibilities of lens-based work as well as its descriptive potential. In starting with everyday materials such as spices and textiles as subjects, she demonstrates the ways in which everyday objects carry cultural weight as well as the histories global capitalism. Her ability to translate these urgent narratives into visually sumptuous, materially inventive works adds to their power.”

In October 2021, Anand was among three Canadian “emerging artist” award winners, as declared by Ontario’s The Hnatyshyn Foundation. The organization’s William and Meredith Saunderson Prizes for Emerging Artists were awarded to Anand along with Dan Cardinal McCartney and Oreka James, each given $5,000 and accolades that come with the national award.

Anand has worked at Surrey Art Gallery as an engagement facilitator with the Art Together program. Her work (“Blueprints for Tying a Dastaar”) was shown at Vancouver Art Gallery as part of the “Vancouver Special: Disorientations and Echo” exhibit in 2021, and also in Toronto at the ArtworxTO Bayview Village exhibition site.

In Anand’s words: “My works build upon my prior explorations of photography as a play on how cultural knowledge can be inscribed in an abstract object — like the photographic exposure of tied turbans, or the continual alternation between stillness and culturally embodied movement. This serves to unpack some of the research that goes into my artistic projects, particularly how photographic process and material process can augment and subvert one another to generate new meanings.”

A bio on her website says Anand’s art practice “interrogates the so-called neutral audience in multicultural society. To accomplish this, she uses materials — particularly textiles, language, performative gestures, and photographs —that resonate beyond the typical art gallery context.”

Previous winners of the Philip B. Lind Emerging Artist Prize are Charlotte Zhang (2021), Laura Gildner (2020), Jessica Johnson (2019), Christopher Lacroix (2018), Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes (2017) and Vilhelm Sundin (2016).



tom.zillich@surreynowleader.com

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Tom Zillich

About the Author: Tom Zillich

I cover entertainment, sports and news stories for the Surrey Now-Leader, where I've worked for more than half of my 30-plus years in the newspaper business.
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