On June 13, OCAD University will recognize four accomplished individuals for their exceptional achievements in the arts and culture sector. This year's honorary doctorate recipients include award-winning creatives - Christi Belcourt, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Tim Whiten - and arts advocate and business leader John Bianchini.
Top: Christi Belcourt (left) and John Bianchini (right). Bottom: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (left) and Tim Whiten, RCA (right)
"We are excited to recognize these truly remarkable Canadians who are leaving indelible marks in the arts and culture sector around the world," says OCAD U's President and Vice-Chancellor Ana Serrano. "These honorands share the same exceptional passion and commitment to driving meaningful, long-lasting impact and civic engagement that we encourage at OCAD U."
The four honorary doctorate recipients will join more than 1,000 students from OCAD U's three faculties and School of Graduate Studies who will attend two Convocation ceremonies at Roy Thomson Hall on June 13.
The 2025 honorary doctorate recipients are:
- Christi Belcourt, an award-winning Métis visual artist, environmentalist and social justice advocate, who will receive a Doctor of Fine Arts during the afternoon ceremony. Belcourt is best known for her acrylic paintings of plants and animals, drawing from symbolic patterns of Indigenous beadwork to create her distinctive pointillist style. Her art and activism are interconnected, reflecting Belcourt's commitment to community and advocacy for Métis and Indigenous Peoples and bringing attention to social justice issues. She has exhibited work across North America, designed the 2015 Toronto Pan Am Games medals and worked with community to coordinate a 10-year project titled, Walking With our Sisters, which was a crowd-sourced art commemorative installation involving tens of thousands of people, to honour the lives of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, Girls and Two Spirit People. Belcourt received both the Premier's Arts Award and the Governor General's Innovation Award in 2016 and was appointed as a member of the Order of Canada in 2024.
- John Bianchini, an arts advocate and business leader who has drawn inspiration from the arts to guide his engineering work, who will receive a Doctor of Laws during the morning ceremony. He is chair and CEO of Hatch, a global engineering, project delivery and professional services firm. Bianchini embraces art as a source of innovation, using its principles to solve complex challenges. His belief that engineering and art are deeply interconnected is embodied in the Hatch Gallery of Contemporary Art at the company's Mississauga's office. He is a board member of the Royal Ontario Museum and Art Canada Institute. Bianchini and his family are avid supporters and philanthropic contributors to the arts community, including the National Gallery of Canada, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, the Toronto Biennial of Art and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.
- Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is a Mexican-Canadian artist who is recognized for his groundbreaking contributions to contemporary art, particularly through participatory installations that activate public space. He will receive a Doctor of Fine Arts during the morning ceremony. Born in Mexico City and based in Montreal, he was the first artist to represent Mexico at the Venice Biennale in 2007. His work is collected widely by major museums such as MoMA, Guggenheim, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Art Gallery of Ontario and Tate Modern. His practice explores the intersection of art, politics and embodied experience, and he has received prestigious honours, including two British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA), a Golden Nica in Austria, a Bauhaus Award in Germany, a Trophée des Lumières in France, and the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts for Artistic Achievement in Canada.
- Tim Whiten, RCA, is one of Canada's most important contemporary artists who engages with themes of ritual, myth and alchemy in his work, exploring the transformations inherent in the human experience. He will receive a Doctor of Fine Arts during the afternoon ceremony. His career spans more than five decades of exploring innovative and diverse practices in sculpture, drawing, printmaking, installation and performance. He is currently Professor Emeritus at York University where he taught in the Department of Visual Arts for 39 years. His work is held in numerous private, corporate and public collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the de Young Museum in San Francisco. In 2023, he was awarded the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts for Artistic Achievement.
