Is there someone you have wanted to collaborate with, but you have never been able to be in the same place at the same time? Are you interested in virtual ways of being together, creating and sharing work with others in a digital format? TDT’s Bridgemakers Project is a new initiative that seeks to create connectivity and stimulate artistic collaboration between Toronto-based dance artists and artists across Canada and Internationally.

Five pairs of artists (ten artists in total) will be commissioned to work remotely on the creation of five new digital works to be included in Toronto Dance Theatre’s upcoming season.

Before filling out the application, please carefully review the full project details and requirements found below.

Email info@tdt.org if you have any questions about the project or application process.

What does the project offer?

Each selected project will receive $2200 CDN ($1100 per artist) to support their collaboration as well as a small budget for materials. A Digital Dramaturg/Technical Consultant will support the artists in setting up their strategies to collaborate as well as to consider the artistic implications of digital-based works. A Public Sharing of the work at the end of the working period will be hosted online and promoted by TDT. Applicants must be available during the proposed work periods, as well as for the online Public Sharing at the conclusion of their project. Artists are responsible for deciding how their collaboration will happen and what forms of technology (or other methods) they will use to collaborate remotely. Studio access at the Winchester Street Theatre may be possible (depending on availability) along with technical help (e.g., access to a projector, etc) to facilitate the collaborative process.

Who should Apply?

Teams of two artists where one applicant is a dance artist based in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

Collaborations between dance and other disciplines, as well as collaborations between pairs of dance artists are welcome.

The Selection Process:

Selection will be based on the quality of the proposal in relationship to the idea of collaborating at a distance, as well as the feasibility of the project. Artists are encouraged to take into account the particularities of collaborating remotely. Projects that involve digital technologies (e.g., video, animation, etc.), projects that propose creative methods of working together by distance, and projects that foster exchange between unique combinations of artistic aesthetics and backgrounds will be prioritized. Availability for Public Sharing dates will also be taken into account.

Eastern Edge is launching an exciting new project, Art as a Tool for Change. Up to four artists will be selected to develop and present work from October 2021 to March 2022. We will be prioritizing people who self-identify as IBPOC (indigenous, black, people of colour) and queer artists in addition to artists whose work explores social change. We welcome applications from all artists but will prioritize new and early career artists. Deadline October 1, 2021

Project Overview – Art as a Tool for Change:

Art is an empowering tool to facilitate critical dialogue around feminism, anti-racism, 2SLGBTQAI+ rights, and environmental activism. This project, running from October 2021 to March 2022, will explore how art inspires and promotes social change and justice. This series will highlight queer and BIPOC artists’ work through events such as panel discussions, workshops, artist talks, film screenings, work-sharing events, and live performances, culminating in a group exhibition and presentation series in Winter 2022.

Working with project Lead Rachel Gilbert, the Eastern Edge Team, and invited curators, the selected artists will participate in a collaborative, self-directed residency that provides resources, space, and support to develop and present their work. This opportunity is open to artists across disciplines with a visual arts focus.

What we provide:

– Working space in Eastern Edge Studios
– Access to the David Tuck Memorial Library
Relevant resources and training
– An artist fee of $7,560.00 for participation in this project. This fee includes the programming of each artist to participate in studio time, present an artist talk, workshop and body of work for exhibition or presentation depending on the art medium. This fee includes your material cost, travel, accommodation stipend.
– Please note that all events and opportunities will be scheduled to accommodate everyone in the program. The project lead will also work with the guest curators to create opportunities that promote the development of each resident artist throughout the program.

Exhibition: Jan 15th to Feb 26th. Artists may present previous, new, or work-in-progress pieces selected upon consultation with the curator. Open to all media (performance, visual, written, etc.).

Eligibility: This call is open to all; however, we prioritize queer, BIPOC, and Newfoundland & Labrador artists.

To apply, fill out the form provided: https://forms.gle/C1nBzvkXVRExJ33AA

CONTEXT

2020 surfaced many challenges in our society that have called for systemic change. In hand with the pandemic, these systemic issues (of racism, inequity, climate crisis, polarization, displacement, mental wellness, food and housing insecurity, and violence) have become more apparent and more urgent.

Being apart from one another has highlighted our interdependence and connectedness. As communities begin to optimistically strategize what post-pandemic life could be after more than a year of living 6 feet apart, we ask designers to reconsider, reframe and remake what’s around us to have a positive and long-lasting impact on society. ‘6ft (a)part’ calls for a new spatial contract that will reshape our everyday life.

6 feet is as much a spatial definition as a social and political notion of an invisible boundary within society. This distance between individuals has always been there. But the fact that it is now quantified behooves us to address its conditions and consequences. As much as it is a quantitative measure of distance, it is also a qualitative measure of our immediate environment. It dictates how we are to be in relation with others.

How will you shape 6 feet from within and beyond its boundary?

BRIEF

Design is fundamentally projective and generative. The design process leads us to observe, question and propose alternative realities, positing ideas that, with purpose, can confront the status quo and inspire change or resilience.

This residency invites designers to propose ideas that can meaningfully impact their communities, through investigation, speculation and production. These ideas can be small or large, intimate or urban, digital or analog. They can stem from ongoing research or a new line of inquiry.

How can reframing the space between us address social inequities? What political and social impact can be made through the generative process of design? How can the shared and inherent hopefulness of design and activism be manifested into real change for the better? How can design help us envision new systems of relations? What part do we play in these possible futures?

RESIDENCY DETAILS

The residency will take place from mid-October 2021 to mid-January 2022, culminating in a public presentation as part of the 2022 DesignTO Festival (January 21-30, 2022). Residents will come together online, meeting every 3 weeks with their cohort of 3 designers and representatives of FLDWRK and DesignTO. In between meetings, residents will be working independently on their proposed projects. Residents will participate in the program remotely, providing their own computer and internet access.

All submissions must include the following:

– A description of your proposed residency project as it connects to the context and brief (max. 500 words);
– A description of the format of your proposed public presentation (e.g. research paper, online article, public presentation/talk, installation, website, podcast, photo series, drawing set) (max. 250 words);
– A short bio on you and/or your creative practice (max. 150 words);
– 3-5 visuals of your work (max. 1MB per image)
Up to 2 links to a video or websites; and
Your contact info (name, email, phone number, mailing address), a CV, and website URL.

There is no fee to apply. A residency stipend of $1,500 CAD will be paid to successful applicants. A production allowance will be available to successful applicants.

DesignTO Symposium
‘No Such Thing as Normal’
What is the new “normal” when there is no such thing as “normal”? In a post-pandemic world, how can we design to meet diverse needs?

“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”
– Dr. Margaret Mead, pioneer in cultural anthropology

With over 7 billion people on earth, there are many different kinds of human beings in the world, each unique. As designer Kat Holmes describes in her book Mismatch, “[design] solutions need to work across a wide range of human diversity. But that’s easier said than done. People can be highly unpredictable. How do we design for so much complexity?”

As discussed at last year’s DesignTO Symposium ‘Towards Inclusive Design’, all design can and should be inclusive. Through participatory design, we can actively involve stakeholders and users throughout the design process to ensure the results meet their diverse needs. By decolonizing design, we can make space for unrepresented voices, truly value diverse perspectives and experiences, and design beyond only human needs.

Designing for an ideal is no longer a desirable outcome. Rather, this approach has proven harmful, contributing to systems of oppression that are intolerant of diversity, including race, culture, disability, gender, and sexual orientation. For many people, not feeling “normal” can be both a point of pride and a source of anguish. Canada’s forcible assimilation of Indigenous peoples is exemplary of the violence that “normal” can inflict.

This symposium invites designers and thinkers to explore how we can dismantle the long-accepted idea of “normal,” in order to design for diversity. How can we create great designs for both the individual and the masses? How can we present human-led solutions that move beyond the oversimplified average by designing “with, not for”? What tools can we use to build “one-size-fits-one” solutions rather than “one-size-fits-all”? What have we learned during the pandemic about systemic inequality? Has the pandemic created or revealed opportunities for change? How do we design a post-pandemic world that, to quote author and activist Sonya Renee Taylor, “fits all of humanity and nature”?

ALL SUBMISSIONS MUST INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING

– A description of your talk topic (max. 500 words), including target audience, format (keep in mind that the symposium will be online), and length/timing (15-20 minutes preferred);
– a short bio on you and/or your creative practice (max. 150 words);
– 1-3 visuals of your work (max. 1MB per image), or a link to a video (if available); and
– Your contact info (name, email, phone number, mailing address), a CV, and website URL, Twitter and Instagram handles (if available).

There is no fee for this submission. All successful applicants are required to cover their own transportation to and accommodations in Toronto for the Symposium date. A modest speaker’s fee will be paid to successful applicants.

Prototype Exhibition
‘Purpose & Play’

Going into its seventh year, ‘Purpose & Play’ is a new edition of the annual prototype exhibition organized by DesignTO in partnership with Umbra. A dozen new prototypes by Canadian designers are shown each year at the Umbra Store during the DesignTO Festival. ‘Purpose & Play’ invites any Canadian designer (living here or abroad) to submit to this open call for submissions.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

The past year has been hard. The effects of the ongoing global pandemic have been felt in almost every aspect of life, with serious illness and loss of life threatening communities, social isolation and stress damaging mental health, and restrictions jeopardizing livelihoods.

Throughout this year, we have been asked to stay at home as much as possible. Many activities previously spread across different locations and environments — live, work, play, learn, socialize — are confined to one space. The monotony of lockdown is contributing to brain fog and boredom.

In a time when everything can feel the same, how can we inject colour and levity into our lives? Where can we find moments of joy and spontaneity? How can we experience our environments anew after so much time in confinement? In contrast to restrictions, essentials, and necessity, how can we carve out opportunities for frivolity and play?

Drawing upon these conditions, the exhibition invites designers to explore new designs for the coming year. How can we create a “new quality of life” through prototypes? Consider opportunities for joy, humour, play, multiple functions, adaptability, personalization, entertaining, and other ways domestic objects can be fun to use and fun to own. The exhibition invites designers to think about the whole environment that we live and work in, and welcomes creative responses to the theme.

There is no fee for this submission or for participating in the Prototype Exhibition. However, if selected, you will be responsible for arranging drop-off and pick-up of your prototype to the Umbra Store, 165 John Street, Toronto, at your own cost. Artist fees will be paid to designers selected for the exhibition.

Expanding upon LEVEL UP’s highly successful Live Design Experiments, we are currently seeking artists of every discipline and experience level—digital creators as well as those with no existing digital practice—to join us as part of a series of paid long-distance virtual collaborations.

Curated groups of four artists will be given thirty hours over two months of working time in which to respond to artistic prompts and create a live experience. At the end of this period, the artists will livestream the results of their experiment for an audience of fellow creators and others.

Our experiments will provide you a safe space to try and potentially fail, and to learn from one another’s experiences. The plan is to create a presentation of some kind—not specifically a performance, but rather some kind of live expression of the ideas that the group has been playing with—in order to share ideas and digital experiences.

By creating opportunities for applicants to learn from current investigations of industry leaders and each other, we will help theatre makers internalize a wider sense of possibility in terms of applying digital tools to their current and future work.

A $1400 fee is offered for participation in this experiment

PoMoArts (formerly Port Moody Arts Centre) is pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for the 2022 Kwi Am Choi Exhibition Scholarship for emerging artists!
Established in 2007, the Kwi Am Choi Exhibition Scholarship is an annual award of $2,000 that recognizes two emerging BC artists between the ages of 18 and 32, and is designed to fund the costs of mounting a solo exhibition of their work at PoMoArts. This initiative provides recent graduates and students currently enrolled in Fine Arts programs at recognized post-secondary institutions in Canada with the opportunity to display their work in a public art gallery, receive curatorial mentorship, and network with other artists and art professionals. Proposals will be evaluated by a jury of art professionals in a blind jurying process to select candidates for the award. Scholarship funds may to be applied to the artist’s costs of creating new work and mounting a 4-week solo exhibition to take place sometime between May and August 2022 at PoMoArts.

The District of West Vancouver invites artists or artist teams to design and integrate site-specific public art at the Navvy Jack Point Park and Weston Park in West Vancouver, BC, Canada.
A proposal for integrated art is being requested for Navvy Jack Point Park (at 21st Street) and Weston Park (at 22nd Street) off Argyle Avenue in West Vancouver.

As part of park improvements, an art element will be incorporated into the parks. All proposed art components must be constructed with durable materials, be safe to use and consider long-term maintenance and longevity in the design. Artists may submit an Expression of Interest for either or both projects.

As the eighth edition of PASSAGES INSOLITES is still in full swing, the EXMURO arts publics team is preparing the next iteration of its flagship event in ephemeral public arts. The ninth edition of PASSAGES INSOLITES will take place in Quebec City over the Summer of 2022. The organization is launching a call for proposals inviting professional artists from Quebec, Canada, and the World to submit work of temporary public art to be included in the 2022 programming of the circuit, whether they are new projects or existing works.

PASSAGES INSOLITES is a public arts festival featuring a circuit of temporary artworks as well as artistic happenings in public space. Presented by EXMURO arts publics and the City of Quebec, this accessible event has been taking place every summer since 2014, for several months, in the historical and central neighbourhoods of Quebec City.

For 8 years now, PASSAGES INSOLITES has been helping Quebec City embrace the unexpected and the unusual by weaving public art into the urban and social fabric of its central neighbourhoods. Ephemeral artistic interventions propagate and amplify a true culture of the strange throughout the city. By bringing new vitality to downtown neighbourhoods and redefining available entertainment experiences, PASSAGES INSOLITES injects a dose of magic and poetry into the often-rigid context of a functioning city. Temporary passages created in the urban landscape divert traditional uses, shift conventional perspectives, and break up the monotony of everyday life.

For the 2022 edition, EXMURO is looking for ingenious and daring proposals that will generate singular encounters with the strange, the eccentric and the surreal. Local, national, and international artists are invited to take over urban space with artistic projects that will incite reflection, produce sensations, or offer extraordinary experiences. Thanks to the organization’s circulation component, many works from PASSAGES INSOLITES are subsequently presented in other cities in Quebec, Canada, and the World.

TERMS

Works: The concepts can either be new (not been produced yet or never presented) or existing (already produced, provided they have never been presented in Quebec City).

Installation context: The submitted project may be designed according to a specific site (in situ) or be adaptable to several potential locations. The work can occupy a specific location or be fragmented in several places. It is not mandatory to propose a specific site, but it is recommended to define the type of context being considered (park, sidewalk, roof, facade, public square, basin, etc.).

Location: The planned location must be within the predefined perimeter in the Petit-Champlain, Place-Royale, and Vieux-Port areas or in the Saint-Roch district (Click here to view on Google Maps).

It should be noted that the sites used in previous editions of PASSAGES INSOLITES may be considered. It is possible to contact the EXMURO team to validate sites before project submission.

Budget: No minimum or maximum amount is imposed, but it should be noted that EXMURO usually offers between $ 5,000 and $ 25,000 per work (depending on its value, scope and complexity). EXMURO accepts the participation of other financial partners.

The budget for a new work must include all the costs associated with its production and presentation (exhibition rights of around 10% of the total budget, materials, production costs, professional fees, shipping, transportation, assembly, and disassembly).
The budget for an existing work must include exhibition rights, restoration costs (if necessary), as well as costs and fees related to shipping, transportation, assembly, and disassembly.
Production: It is possible to arrange full or partial outsourcing of the production process with the EXMURO team of technicians. The budget would therefore be reviewed and modified following the acceptance of the proposal.

Durability: The proposed work must be durable (three and a half months), safe, and autonomous (not requiring special monitoring or maintenance). Although not required, the jury will pay particular attention to the potential of subsequent presentations of the work.

The City of Brampton invites professional artists and artist-led teams to submit expressions of interest to create a new Brampton Fire and Emergency Services Memorial. Artists must reside in, and be legally permitted to work in Canada.

This Call to Artists for Expressions of Interest is the first stage of a two-stage competitive process:

Stage One: A review of expressions of interest by a selection panel of project stakeholders; and,

Stage Two: Invitations to a shortlist of eligible artists to submit a design proposal. The successful artist will be selected at this stage.

The total budget for this project is $300,000 CAD including HST.

The submission period for Stage One will be open until October 14, 2021, at 2 pm.