2026 Jurors

Scotiabank Photography Award

World-renowned Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky is the chair of a panel of three expert jury members for the 2026 Scotiabank Photography Award. This year’s jury includes: Mireille Eagan, Andrea Kunard and Zoë Tousignant.

Edward Burtynsky

Edward Burtynsky is regarded as one of the world's most accomplished contemporary photographers. His remarkable photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes represent over 40 years of his dedication to bearing witness to the impact of human industry on the planet. Burtynsky's photographs are included in the collections of over 80 major museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa; the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid; the Tate Modern in London, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California. 

https://www.edwardburtynsky.com/

Zoë Tousignant

Zoë Tousignant is Curator, Photography, at the McCord Stewart Museum. She holds a PhD in Art History from Concordia University and an MA in Museum Studies from the University of Leeds, UK. Her research focuses on the production and reception of photographic culture in Quebec and Canada. Her curatorial projects have included close collaborations with such photographers as Serge Clément, Carlos Ferrand, Marisa Portolese, Gabor Szilasi and the members of the Disraeli collective. Her many publications include the books Gabor Szilasi: The Art World in Montreal, 1960-1980 (McCord Stewart Museum and McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019) and Pounding the Pavement: Montreal Street Photography (McCord Stewart Museum, 2025).

Mireille Eagan

Mireille Eagan is Curator of Contemporary Art at The Rooms. Previously, she was curator at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown, PEI, where she was a founding member of that province’s artist-run collective This Town Is Small. Eagan has curated more than 100 exhibitions, individually or as co-curator, including the nationally touring retrospective Mary Pratt and Mary Pratt: This Little Painting at the National Gallery of Canada (that institution’s first solo exhibition of an Atlantic Canadian woman artist), as well as the Terra Nova Art Foundation’s Collateral Project at the 55th Venice Biennale. She received a Digital Publishing Awards’ Gold Medal in 2018 and the Critical Eye Award from VANL-CARFAC in 2017 and 2022. Eagan was the project lead, editor and author for “Future Possible: An Art History of Newfoundland and Labrador,” winner of the 2022 Atlantic Book Awards Best Atlantic-Published Book and Honourable Mention for Outstanding Research from the Canadian Museums Association and Melva J. Dwyer Award. “Future Possible” was subsequently the theme for an Atlantic-wide arts conference, for which Eagan was keynote speaker. She currently holds the position of President of the Atlantic Provinces Art Gallery Association. Eagan has written for publications including Border Crossings, C Magazine, Canadian Art, The Globe and Mail, and Inuit Art Quarterly and has lectured nationally and internationally.

Andrea Kunard

Senior Curator, Photographs, National Gallery of Canada

Andrea Kunard curates, researches and publishes on historical and contemporary photography.  Exhibitions include Shifting Sites (2000), Susan McEachern: Structures of Meaning (2004), Steeling the Gaze (2008), Clash: Conflict and Its Consequences (2012), Michel Campeau: Icons of Obsolescence (2013), Photography in Canada 1960-2000 (2017); Anthropocene (2018) with Sophie Hackett and Urs Stahel; Moyra Davey: The Faithful (2020), and Kan Azuma: A Matter of Place (2024) with Assistant Curator Euijung McGillis. Kunard has taught photo history, Canadian art and cultural theory at Carleton and Queen's Universities. She has also published in the National Gallery of Canada Review, (U of T Press), The Journal of Canadian Art History, the International Journal of Canadian Studies, and Early Popular Visual Culture.