The Castaic, Calif.-based Chiquita Canyon landfill hosted a gallery reception and awards ceremony at CalArts on March 31 to award more than $8,000 in scholarships to students who won the 2016 Chiquita Canyon Found Art Competition.
The competition, now in its fifth year, challenges students to create a piece of art utilizing items found items from Chiquita. Earlier in March, students interested in entering the competition had the chance to visit the landfill to select items to use in their works.
This year, the first place winner was Hagar Cygler (Art MFA 17) for Untitled, second place went to Sichong Xie (Art MFA 17) for Best Wishes and Samantha Chen (Art BFA 19) won the third prize for From the Gutter Look to the Stars. In addition, Nadezhda Korepanova (Art MFA 17) won the Dave and Nancy Bossert Award, funded by trustee and CalArts alumnus Dave Bossert (Film/Video BFA 83), for Prohibited (Russian rhetoric).
“Chiquita Canyon is once again very honored to partner with CalArts on such an important annual scholarship program,” says Chiquita Canyon District Manager Steve Cassulo in a press release. “As we continue to find opportunities to actively support our local community, the Found Art Scholarship Program allows us to celebrate and encourage young local artists and the students of CalArts. We’re very excited about this year’s event and are beyond pleased with the program’s continued success.”
CalArts School of Art Tom Lawson says, “The Found Art Scholarship Program is an exceptional annual event that showcases the outstanding talent of our students. On behalf of everyone at CalArts, I sincerely thank Chiquita Canyon for its continued support of the arts and for inspiring our students to create inspirational and unique works of art.”
Above are photos of the winning art works, as well as of the ceremony.