Residency Resources

Google provides a lot of information about local and international residency opportunities available to Canadian visual artists. The residencies that came up in my searches cover a vast range of media, length of tenure, eligibility, cost, subsidies available, and responsibilities. You have no option but to spend some time online researching them, in order to find the one that best suits your needs.

The research you do will reveal the wide range of options and forms residencies take. The more ideal the residency sounds, the more likely it is that there will be a lot of competition to obtain it. To compete for a highly desirable residency will require (in addition to a meritorious artistic mission) excellent references and writing and presentation skills.

Use Google to search opportunities by using thoughtful key words such as: “international visual arts residencies;” “educational (or academic) artist residencies;” or use a similar phrase and add the word “in” and then type the medium or site that interests you.

The Canada Council (ITALIC) (www.canadacouncil.ca) has a list of the international residency opportunities that it supports with grants to artists through a peer adjudicated process at: www.canadacouncil.ca/grants/visualarts/xh127227143690312500.htm

Artists in Canada (ITALIC) (artistsincanada.com) lists international residency opportunities at: artistsincanada.com/php/~studio.php

The Banff Centre (ITALIC) hosts the Leighton Artists’ Colony (ITALIC) residency program for artists of various disciplines, including the visual arts, through an adjudicated application process explained at: www.banffcentre.ca

Res Artis (ITALIC) (www.resartis.org) is the largest existing network of artist residency programs, representing the interests of more than three hundred centres and organizations in fifty countries worldwide, that offer international artists facilities and conditions conducive for making art.

Trans Artists (ITALIC) (www.transartists.org) is a knowledge centre on Artist-in-Residence opportunities. Here you can find all about international Artist-in-Residence programs as well as opportunities for artists to stay and work elsewhere.

The best information may come from fellow artists in your community or artists you find through research on the Internet. I have often posed questions to artists whom I have never met in person but whose career experience I have read about on her or his website. The Skype Internet telephone service (www.skype.com/intl/en-us/home) has also allowed me to have free and visually rich conversations with artists whom I meet via the web and who live thousands of miles away.