NEWS RELEASE
\nMIRANDA WICKETT
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\nSault born artist Miranda Gallagher-Wickett is asking her hometown for a little support \u2014 quite literally.<\/p>\n
Gallagher-Wickett\u2019s six-foot-scale bra sculpture, Suspending Support: The Hidden Architecture of the Bra, has been selected as one of the Top 100 works in Art Comp 2026, an international art competition and exhibition held at 100 Kellogg Lane in London, Ont.<\/p>\n
With People\u2019s Choice voting closing Sept. 7, Gallagher-Wickett hopes the community she still considers home will help carry the work further.<\/p>\n
Northern Ontario has done it before. Last year\u2019s first-place People\u2019s Choice winner, Rebecca Clou\u00e2tre, was born and raised in North Bay and credited strong hometown support throughout the voting period.<\/p>\n
\u201cI live and work in London now, but I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever stopped thinking of the Sault as home,\u201d Gallagher-Wickett says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI come home often to see my family, spend time with people I love and reconnect with the community. I think I\u2019ve ended up with two homes \u2014 and both of them are deeply woven into the work I make. Women of the Sault were instrumental in starting my art career.\u201d<\/p>\n
A giant bra with a much bigger story<\/p>\n
Suspending Support makes the engineering hidden inside an everyday bra impossible to ignore. At approximately six feet in scale (and suspended in mid-air) the sculpture exposes its architecture of cups, seams, straps, underwire and tension.<\/p>\n
What began as an exploration of garment engineering became a broader conversation about bodies, access and the things women are often expected to figure out without being taught.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of us were handed a bra at some point and expected to figure it out,\u201d Gallagher-Wickett says. \u201cBut a bra is actually an incredibly engineered object. Making one at this scale gave me a way to make that engineering visible \u2014 and to start asking bigger questions about what support actually means.\u201d<\/p>\n
An artist, breast-health advocate and movement educator, Gallagher-Wickett explores bodies, breast health, care and lived experience through sculpture, body casting, education and prosthetic work.<\/p>\n
Two homes \u2014 and a continuing commitment to breast health in the north<\/p>\n
In February 2025, Gallagher-Wickett returned to Sault Ste. Marie to present a solo exhibition exploring breast health, bodies and lived experience.<\/p>\n
Over the past two years, she has also participated in fundraising efforts supporting breast-health care in northern Ontario, including fundraising for new mammography equipment for the Group Health Centre alongside Sault Ste. Marie women-owned businesses Aline Wellness and Moon & Mana.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that accessing health care in northern Ontario can come with challenges that people living in larger centres don\u2019t always see,\u201d she says. \u201cThere are too many women I love living in the north for me not to care about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t pretend that a small art practice or a fundraiser fixes health inequity. But I do believe we can keep inching the scale closer to balance. If my work can raise money, start conversations, share information or help advocate for better breast-health access, I want to keep using it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
That connection is part of why asking Sault Ste. Marie for support feels meaningful.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t a community I left behind,\u201d Gallagher-Wickett says. \u201cIt\u2019s my family. It\u2019s people who have known me for decades. It\u2019s women I care deeply about. It\u2019s a place I keep coming home to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Could the north rally again?<\/p>\n
Art Comp brings together 100 works selected from artists around the world for its annual exhibition at 100 Kellogg Lane. This year\u2019s competition includes three People\u2019s Choice prizes determined through public voting, with first place receiving $50,000.<\/p>\n
For Gallagher-Wickett, the prize would support future work connecting art, education, women\u2019s health and advocacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would give me an extraordinary opportunity to keep building work that lives between art, education, women\u2019s health and advocacy,\u201d she says. \u201cThere are larger projects I want to make, stories I want to preserve and conversations I want to bring into public and health-care spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gallagher-Wickett hopes Sault Ste. Marie residents will find Suspending Support: The Hidden Architecture of the Bra\u00a0and support one of their own.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved reading Rebecca\u2019s story because there was something so northern Ontario about it \u2014 people showing up for someone who came from their community,\u201d Gallagher-Wickett says.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m swallowing my awkwardness about asking for votes and asking the Sault: If this work means something to you, I\u2019d really love your support.\u201d<\/p>\n
How to vote<\/p>\n