Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity Announces Ryan Van Der Hout as Winner of the 2026 Barbara Spohr Memorial Award
By
Banff Centre Communications
Posted on
September 11, 2025
Ryan Van Der Hout. Photo by Kristina Ruddick.
The annual award at Banff Centre recognizes a mid-career Canadian artist whose practice advances the field of contemporary photography. This prize includes a fully funded month-long, self-directed residency at Banff Centre’s Leighton Artist Studios, valued at over $7,000 CAD.
BANFF, AB, SEPTEMBER 11, 2025 – Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity is proud to announce Ryan Van Der Hout (he/they) as the 2026 recipient of the Barbara Spohr Memorial Award for Photography, facilitated through the Leighton Artist Studios program. Established by the friends and family of the late Canadian photographer Barbara Spohr, the annual prize is intended to encourage the ongoing development of contemporary photography in Canada.
An interdisciplinary artist based in Toronto, Canada, working across photography, public art, and sculpture, Van Der Hout investigates transformation through fragmentation and reflection, using glass and mirrors as both material and metaphor for queer experience and becoming. Their innovative integration of photographic imagery into three-dimensional objects and installations challenges how we see ourselves and our environment, inviting audiences to witness how breaking and reassembly can reveal new possibilities.
Represented by United Contemporary and Oeno Gallery, Van Der Hout has exhibited internationally across Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Their work has been widely featured in publications including Time Out NY, The Huffington Post, Vogue Italia, Fortune Magazine, Reader’s Digest, CBC, and NBC News. They have also created public art projects for NYC Parks, the City of Toronto, and Nuit Blanche.
Edge State, 2024. UV print on glass, solder, copper, stainless steel, varnish. 62" x 32" x 2". Unique
After losing access to analog colour darkrooms over a decade ago, receiving the Barbara Spohr Memorial Award feels like a true homecoming to the foundational materials that first shaped my understanding of photography. I'm incredibly excited to be creating work surrounded by Banff's deep geological time while returning to these essential processes—light, glass, and photographic paper.
Ryan Van Der Hout
Van Der Hout will be in residence from January 19 to February 13, 2026, with 24-hour access to the Crich Studio, a Leighton Artist Studio equipped with private analogue darkroom facilities. In addition to accessing digital photographic production resources and support from Banff Centre’s photography facilitator, the award provides meals, accommodation with an honorarium at CARFAC-based rates. The jury selected Van Der Hout for this opportunity in recognition of their “exceptional critical, creative, and technical rigor.”
During the residency, Banff Centre will present a free public artist talk with Van Der Hout on February 6, 2026, from 4-5:30 p.m. in the Jeanne and Peter Lougheed Building at Banff Centre. In this talk, they will discuss their broader practice and current investigations into the intersection of geological and human time, integrating analog darkroom processes with stained glass techniques to create new works that collapse temporal scales into unified forms.
This event is presented in partnership with Exposure Photography Festival and made possible through the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Government of Canada, Government of Alberta, and the friends and family of Barbara Spohr.
Installation view of Mending Shards 2024 at United Contemporary. Photo courtesy of Ryan Van Der Hout.
We’re honoured to welcome Ryan Van Der Hout as the 2026 Barbara Spohr Memorial Award recipient at Leighton Artist Studios. Their work transforms photography into a sculptural, reflective practice. With Banff’s darkroom facilities and surrounding landscape, this residency offers an ideal setting to deepen their exploration of material, identity, and time.
Karen Howard, Senior Manager, Leighton Studios and Self-Directed Residencies at Banff Centre
Formerly a biennial prize, the Barbara Spohr Memorial Award became an annual award in 2025. Applications are open to Canadian mid-career photo-based artists with a strong record of accomplishment, supporting those focused on creating new works, developing specific projects, or researching innovative ideas.
The most recent recipient of the Barbara Spohr Memorial Award was Karen Zalamea (2025). Past recipients include Anna Binta Diallo and Logan MacDonald (2021), Lotus L. Kang (2018), Lorna Bauer (2018), Elise Rasmussen (2016), Colin Miner (2013),Celia Perrin Sidarous (2011), Maegan Hill-Carroll (2009), Ramona Ramlochland (2007), Justin Waddell (2005), Dianne Bos (2005) and David McMillan (2004), among others.
To find out when the 2027 Barbara Spohr Memorial Award will open for submissions, visit banffcentre.ca/leighton-artist-studios.
To learn more about funding opportunities for artists at Banff Centre, visit banffcentre.ca/funding-opportunities-artists.
For photos, information or interview requests, please contact:
Carly Maga
Director, Communications
Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
tel: +1.403.763.6210
cell: +1.403.431.3423
carly_maga@banffcentre.ca
About Ryan Van Der Hout
Ryan Van Der Hout (b. 1987, Canada) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice investigates transformation through fragmentation and reflection, using glass and mirrors as both material and metaphor for queer experience and becoming. They create works that challenge how we see ourselves and our environment, inviting viewers to witness how breaking can reveal new possibilities.
Central to Van Der Hout's practice is the innovative use of photographic imagery as a foundational element in creating three-dimensional objects and installations. In their "Twice Broken Glass" series, they explore parallel acts of destruction—shattering one pane through violent impact while precisely cutting another to mirror the breaks, then repairing both identically using traditional stained glass techniques. This investigation continues in their photographic glass portraits, where intimate images printed on glass are deliberately shattered and reconstructed into fragmented new forms, suggesting that when we put ourselves back together after breaking, we become stranger but more authentic versions of ourselves.
Van Der Hout's public works function as large optical devices, reflecting and refracting surrounding space to create ongoing physical dynamics with viewers. Their monumental sculpture "To Reflect Everything" (Washington Square Park, 2025, Toronto Sculpture Garden, 2023) used hundreds of mirror panels to create an optical device that transforms public space, drawing on the disco ball's history as a symbol of queer sanctuary and the satellite's promise of alternative futures.
Van Der Hout holds an MFA from Parsons at The New School and a BFA in Photography from Metropolitan University. Their work has been featured in Time Out NY, NBC News, Vogue Italia, Fortune Magazine, and CBC. Recent solo exhibitions include "Mending Shards" (United Contemporary, 2024) and "To Reflect Everything" (Toronto Sculpture Garden, 2023). They have created public art for NYC Parks, the City of Toronto, and Nuit Blanche, and have been supported by the Ontario Arts Council and awarded the Emerging Artist Award by the Robert McLaughlin Gallery and the Barbara Spohr Memorial Award from the Banff Centre. ryanvanderhout.com
About Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
Founded in 1933, Banff Centre is a post-secondary institution built upon an extraordinary legacy of excellence in artistic and leadership development. What started as a single course in drama has grown to become a global organization leading in arts, culture, and creative decision-making across dozens of disciplines, from the fine arts to Indigenous Wise Practices. From our home in the stunning Canadian Rocky Mountains, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity aims to move everyone who attends our campus - artists, leaders, thinkers, and audiences - to unleash their creative potential and realize their unique contribution to build an innovative, inspiring future through education, performances, convenings, and public outreach. banffcentre.ca