Abstract
“Awards: Acknowledging Absence and Situating Toronto’s
Incarcerated Women – 1919-1940”
Master of Fine Arts, 2016
Jennifer Lorraine Fraser
Criticism and Curatorial Practice
OCAD University

Awards, is a co-construction of research, contemplation and response to the history of women being unethically incarcerated; their forced labour within asylums, and their lifestyle choices which led to their incarceration. Reconceptualising the lives of women charged under the Female Refuges Act (FRA), following its revision in 1919; Awards outlines the systemic oppression young women faced when they were asylumed. Women were disciplined for reasons such as feeblemindedness, deviance, and incorrigibility; and this curatorial project highlights the lack of their personal narratives.
Awards incorporates archival reproductions with contemporary artistic practice used to raise questions about societal expectations of women. Included, are eight artists: Ana Čop, Anna Copa Cabanna, Britta Fluevog, Gillian Dykeman, Jamey Braden, Kristina Guison, Paddy Jane, and Rene Vandenbrink. Acknowledging Velma Demerson’s personal narrative of incarceration, (2002) and the subsequent research that followed her publication, Incorrigible; Awards re-examines what life was like during the inter-war period in Toronto.

• http://awardsjlf.weebly.com/