Visual Arts - Embodied Making: Performance Art, Images and Objects

Overview  

This program invites visual artists to think expansively about performance, and how performance emerges through movement, stillness, reading, listening, endurance, care and collective action. Further, it invites artists to investigate the ways that performance and materiality intersect, considering how images and forms are activated, transformed, and given meaning through embodied interaction.

Through individual studio-based experimentation and collective inquiry, artists will explore and create new relationships between bodies, objects, and spaces. Banff’s extraordinary landscape and natural surroundings inevitably become collaborators in the creative process, offering opportunities for site-responsive and place-based investigations.

Description

Visual Arts residencies at Banff Centre are structured programs of faculty-led activity and mentorship, supporting project-based studio practice.

This program supports: 

• the development of theoretical concepts and artistic ideas through independent research alongside faculty-led activities and workshops
• one-to-one faculty mentorship through studio visits and faculty meetings
• the development of technical skills through experimentation and skill-based learning assisted by staff technicians
• peer-to-peer informal learning related to studio and professional practice
• the development of a professional community towards developing and sustaining an artistic career

 Artists are assigned individual studios with access to shared production facilities. Knowledgeable staff are available to provide technical assistance.

Please take note of the program itinerary when planning your project proposal. 

Facility access is based on availability of facilitators and priority goes to those requesting access in their initial applications. 

Requirements 

This residency is for individual artists or duos (no more than two collaborators) at any stage of their career.

 Applicants should

• be available to participate over the entire five-week period of the program
• have completed formal training in visual arts at the post-secondary level, or
• have equivalent experience and recognition from their peers acquired through traditional knowledge and practices.

The program is designed to cater to visual artists working in, but not limited to, practices in

• ceramics
• digital media
• painting, drawing, printmaking, and papermaking
• performance art
• photography 
• sculpture and installation.

Participants will benefit most if they

• are competent in the production processes that they are proposing to undertake during the residency
• are comfortable working independently within a cohort environment 
• have a clearly thought-out project with a focus on research and process 
• have good time management skills to balance scheduled program activity alongside independent studio practice.

Please note that children are not permitted in visual arts studios or production areas.

Eligibility

Applicants must be 18+ at the time of the program start date. 

Domestic and international applications are welcome.

Visa Eligibility Information:

• Please note that Banff Centre programs do not meet the eligibility requirements for a Canadian Student Visa.
• If you are accepted into our program, you must obtain a Visitor Visa to enter Canada. Accepted participants are responsible for identifying and complying with the immigration requirements to enter Canada as a visitor from their country of origin. If you require a Visitor Visa please check the current expected processing times well in advance of applying.

Inclusivity Statement

We welcome applicants of all ages (18+), backgrounds, gender identities and expressions to apply. Artists from historically underrepresented and equity deserving groups are especially welcome.