Congratulations to alumni Vicki Van Chau and Simone Elizabeth Saunders for being named in this year's Top 40 Under 40 by Avenue Calgary magazine.
Vicki Van Chau (BFA ’08, Media Arts) is a champion for the arts community whose award-winning films explore Asian-Canadian stories from the prairies.
In 2011, as the program director of Emmedia Gallery and Production Society, she led the organization out of a financial crisis that almost shut its doors, with the help of a newly elected board of directors and staff hires. In 2012, she helped launch the annual Particle + Wave Media Arts Festival, which showcases exhibits, screenings, and performances by local and national media artists, and is the only festival of its kind in Alberta.
Read more about Vicki Van Chau.
Simone Elizabeth Saunders (BFA ’20, Fibre) is making waves in the international art world with her textile pieces that honour femininity and the strength and joy of Black lives.
In 2020, Saunders graduated with distinction and was the national winner of the BMO 1st Art! competition. That same year, she was offered exclusive representation by the Claire Oliver Gallery in New York, which is staging a solo exhibition of her work in March 2023. Her individual pieces now sell for as much as US $28,000 and are in the collections of museums and individuals across North America, including the Minneapolis Institute of Art and 21c Museum Hotel Chicago.
Read more about Simone Elizabeth Saunders.
Photo: Vicki Van Chau, Photograph by Steve Collins / Simone Elizabeth Saunders, Photograph by Jared Sych
