Esse x Hnatyshyn Foundation Young Critics Competition
The Hnatyshyn Foundation is pleased to partner with Esse arts + opinions to support the publication’s Young Critics Competition. This annual writing competition is open to students registered in an undergraduate or master’s program at a Canadian university. It aims to promote the work of emerging art critics by providing them with editorial support and a first publishing experience in Esse magazine.
With this competition founded in 2003, Esse has given itself the mandate to support new talent while developing critical thought in contemporary art. Thanks to this collaboration, starting in 2026, the annual competition will offer a $1,000 prize to the winner. The winner will have their text published in the Fall issue of the magazine and will have the opportunity to publish a second text, with an additional $500 honorarium, on Esse’s digital platform. Prizes of $500 will also be awarded to the finalists, along with the publication of their work to Esse’s website.
-
The deadline to submit a text for the Young Critics Competition is May 10th of each year. The competition is open to young critics writing in English or French. Please visit Esse’s website for details!
-
A Japanese visual artist based in Richmond, BC, Maiko Miyasaka explores themes of migration, identity, and belonging. She holds a BEcon from The University of Osaka and is currently completing a fine arts diploma at Langara College.
Miyasaka’s SIDE CORE: under city reviews 𝗦𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗥𝗘’s exhibition 𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙘𝙞𝙩𝙮 presented at the Richmond Art Gallery from April 18 to July 5. The text was published in the Fall issue of Esse (118 - Tongues) and online at Esse.ca.
Instagram: @maikomiyasakaart
Website: maikomiyasaka.com
-
A master’s candidate in art history at Laval University, Sarah-Jeanne Drouin focuses her research on perishable materials, such as food, exploring their potential as metaphors for grief and human fragility.
Drouin’s Je préfère être cyborg que déesse is available to read in French on the Esse website.
A Toronto-based artist and curator, Samantha Moffatt-Sanz is an MFA student at OCAD University. Bridging academic discourse and alternative curatorial methods, she focuses on artist-run ethics, slow viewing, and fostering systems of reciprocity within contemporary art spaces.
Moffatt-Sanz’s The Threshold of the Self: Grant Heaps at the Red Head Gallery is available to read in English on the Esse website.
Jade Dubé, who holds a bachelor’s degree in visual and media arts from the Université du Québec à Montréal, has developed a pictorial practice that explores contemporary forms of vanity. She documents the nostalgia for familiar spaces—once sanctuaries of connection, but now supplanted by an ephemeral facade shaped by an artificial sense of haste.
Dubé’s The Anonymous Project : Being There is available to read in French on the Esse website.
-
The adjudicators for this program are determined by Esse’s editorial committee.
-
A non-profit organization founded in 1984, Les éditions Esse produces Esse arts + opinions, a bilingual contemporary art magazine covering a wide range of artistic practices, including visual arts, performing arts, digital arts and all forms of social, in situ or performative intervention.
