Heather Igloliorte of UVic Fine Arts receives $2.5 million SSHRC Partnership Grant
July 21, 2026
Canada Excellence Research Chair Heather Igloliorte, a globally renowned Indigenous art historian and curator, has been awarded $2.5 million over seven years by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s Partnership Grants program.
Her project, “Northern Indigenous Futures: Fostering Early Career Leadership and Research in the Arts,” will train and empower circumpolar Indigenous emerging scholars, artists and arts professionals, including students and postdoctoral researchers, to become research leaders in Canada and internationally.
Igloliorte, a professor in UVic’s Visual Arts department, and her partners throughout the arts sector will train highly qualified personnel to become critics, directors, graphic designers, curators, editors, collections managers and more. This research training and talent development partnership unites a global network of Indigenous and settler curators, artists, scholars, students and community members of diverse practices, media, knowledges, backgrounds and Nations to collaborate and innovate new approaches to decolonial mentorship in the arts.