accolade
Leisure wins the 2025 Prix Louis-Comtois for excellence in Montreal’s contemporary art scene
Leisure (Meredith Carruthers & Susannah Wesley). Photo: CNW/Ville de Montréal - Cabinet de la mairesse et du comité exécutif.
Leisure, the long-running collaborative duo of Concordia INDI PhD candidates Meredith Carruthers (MFA 04) and Susannah Wesley (MA 08), has been awarded the 2025 Louis-Comtois Award, a major distinction recognizing mid-career artists who have shaped Montréal’s contemporary art landscape.
The annual award, overseen jointly by the Contemporary Art Galleries Association (AGAC) and the Ville de Montréal, supports and promotes the work of an artist who has distinguished themselves in the city’s contemporary art scene over the past 15 years. It includes a $7,500 prize and an additional $2,500 to support a solo exhibition.
In its citation, the jury highlighted the duo’s sustained engagement with questions of representation, museum practices and the structures that shape how art is produced and received.
“Since 2004, Leisure’s collaborative practice has raised timely questions about museums, systemic frameworks and the norms of the art world,” the jury wrote. “Each project invites audiences into a performative and relational research practice that opens space for voices still too often absent from artistic institutions.”
« Chrysalis and Butterfly, OPTICA, Montréal », 2025, by Leisure. Photo credit: Paul Litherland.
Carruthers and Wesley say the recognition affirms the core values of their practice, which has evolved through two decades of shared inquiry.
“We are proud to be the first collaboration to receive the Louis-Comtois prize,” says Wesley. “In an increasingly divisive world, we think approaches to shared thinking and making are incredibly important.”
“This recognition affirms our collaborative approach to art but also to life,” she says. “Our practice has opened us up to so many new experiences, people and places. Awards like this help artists continue on their path, and we’re grateful for the support for projects to come,” notes Carruthers.
The duo also emphasizes the importance of institutional support for collaborative scholarship, expressing gratitude for Concordia’s INDI program, which accepted their collaborative PhD proposal and continues to support their work as they navigate this precedent-setting co-joint doctoral process.
Discover the Individualized (INDI) Program at Concordia’s School of Graduate Studies.
