February 17, 2021 - November 30, 2021 | Virtual event The Art of the Matter - Beyond the Microscope

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the discovery of insulin—a landmark achievement for Canadian research. While insulin is not a cure, it created a miraculous change in life expectancy and quality of life for millions of people around the world.  

In these challenging times, we can draw hope and inspiration from Dr. Banting’s Nobel Prize winning idea. Dr. Banting found hope and inspiration through his passion for water colours and sketching, and even spent time studying with members of the Group of Seven.  

With Banting’s love of art in mind, and in partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), Diabetes Canada will host a unique and first-ever art competition in support of the diabetes community, beginning on February 17.  

Our hope is that the art competition will provide the diabetes community with a wonderful opportunity to: 

• Connect, express, support each other, while sharing experiences through art. 
• Experiences could include the stigma associated with living with diabetes, or even wanting to commemorate 100th anniversary of the discovery of insulin. 

How to participate 

We’re asking all artists submitting work to create art based on the prompt:  

“How do you want people to perceive diabetes?” 

There are two ways you can take part: 

1. Submitting your art into a competition, or 
2. Tagging your art using our hashtag #DCArtOfTheMatter, on social media to have your art viewed by our audiences (non-competition entry). 

For competition entries: 

• A nominal fee is required for all individuals submitting into the competition. 
• You can submit using an online form, with a maximum of 4 submissions/person.  
• Submissions will be divided into age categories for judging purposes. 
• Competition entries are eligible to win a prize.  
• There are many cool prizes, including being featured in the AGO’s newsletter, having your art included within Diabetes Canada’s various social and event virtual galleries, being featured in a short video clip featured on the AGO website and much more! 

The competition is open to all skill levels and ages. We welcome participants within Canada and internationally. We will be accepting both fine and video arts. 

Finalists and overall winners for the competition will be announced in July 2021, after the competition closes on JUNE 9 at 11:59 p.m. ET. 2021.

The full submission guidelines and terms and conditions can be found here.