Kingston’s thriving arts community spotlighted some major players this week.
At the 2025 Mayor’s Arts Awards Reception, recipients were honoured for their years-long contributions to various arts projects in Kingston. Artists Aaron Forsyth (EronOne), Jesse MacMillan, and Camille Spencer received this year’s Creator Awards. The 2025 Artist Champion Award was presented to le Centre Culturel Frontenac, Kingston’s premier Francophone cultural hub. The reception was warm and well-attended by about 120 people, hosted on Nov. 24 at Memorial Hall in Kingston City Hall.
Emcee Kay Kenney began proceedings at 7 p.m. by introducing the program, which has been presented since 2017 by the City of Kingston in partnership with the Kingston Arts Council.
Mayor Bryan Patterson attended and addressed the audience early on. He thanked recipients for enriching Kingston’s artistic community, explaining the award “highlights the critical role that arts and culture play” in Kingston. “You make Kingston a better city [through] your work,” he told recipients at the event.
The 2025 Creator Awards were presented to “active, contributing” community members, Kenney said onstage. Each recipient was named, followed by a short video interview produced by Little Friday which familiarized the audience with their work.
Muralist and visual artist Forsythe was recognized first for his contributions to Kinston’s public art, especially his mural by the waterfront Delta hotel, and the mural Transformations on the former Agnes Etherington Art Centre building at Queen’s. “When I saw public art for the first time, I wanted to create it myself,” Forsythe said in the video.
Next, multidisciplinary artist Jesse MacMillan was honoured, spotlighting his contributions to the Isabel Bader Centre and Kingston’s Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA). In his video, he urged Kingstonians to “get out and see pieces [of art] that will then influence yours.”
“The other part [of seeing different art] is collaboration,” MacMillan said in an interview with The Journal. Working with multi-disciplinary artists has expanded the horizons of MacMillan’s own work throughout his career. “You kind of get a process that I feel can really change the way you live in your own,” he said.
Spencer’s the final recipient of the Creator Award for her work as an artist and dance educator in Kingston. She works as a Producer for the 2025 GroundUP Dance Festival and teaches workshops at the H’art Centre. “It’s very exciting to receive this award because it just brings more exposure to the dance things going on around town,” Spencer said in an interview with The Journal.
To end the night, the Arts Champion Award was presented to Le Centre Culturel Frontenac, which showcases Francophone “music, theatre, youth shows, [and] dance performances,” Executive Director Samia Bestandji said in the ceremony’s video.
After the ceremony, recipients and guests lingered in Memorial Hall, sharing complementary catering and congratulations. Many audience members had families present, and Kenney joked as she opened the evening that proceedings wouldn’t run too long on a school night (Monday).
The reception’s emulsion of life and art felt emblematic of the broader Kingston art scene, rich in multi-talented artists layering their work in exciting ways. “It’s so intertwined because it’s not a huge community,” MacMillan said.
“Within the pockets, everybody knows each other,” he said. From live theatre, to dance, to murals splashed along Kingston’s cityscape, the winners of this year’s Mayor’s Arts Awards represent the diversity of Kingston’s art scene itself.
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Art, art awards, Choreography, City of Kingston, Dance, Mayor’s Arts Awards, Performance, Theatre, Visual art
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