Executive Director, SAVAC

Reverberations: Performance Arts Residency and Living Exhibition, Jana Omar Elkhatib, Rajyashri Goody, and mihyun maria kim, The Commons at 401, 2025. Photo: Henry Chan

Employment Opportunity: Executive Director, SAVAC

Deadline: March 4, 2026

About SAVAC

SAVAC (South Asian Visual Arts Centre) is the only non-profit, artist-run centre in Canada dedicated to increasing the visibility of culturally diverse artists by curating and exhibiting their work, providing mentorship, facilitating professional development and creating a community for our artists. SAVAC was founded to be an organization staffed by people of colour, committed to support the work of artists of colour.

We champion and provide a platform for artistic practices informed by cultural identity, explored through diverse mediums and aesthetics. We support work that addresses the ways histories of people of colour are represented alongside the story of ongoing imperialism and post-colonial contexts of the global south.

For 30+ years, SAVAC has operated without a gallery space as an explicit, political choice. Instead, as a means of pushing diversity mandates within the Canadian arts ecology beyond the minimum, we partner with galleries, institutions and museums to integrate artists and curators of colour into the curatorial and programming practices of those institutions.

About the Position

We are seeking an Executive Director to lead the strategic and administrative direction of the organization, working closely with the Board of Directors. The ED carries out the mandate of SAVAC and has oversight of finances, staffing, strategy, marketing and communications and sectoral relationships, collaborating with a range of arts and community organizations to ensure its success and vitality. The ED serves on the Executive Committee of the Commons at 401, a collectively run, shared space initiative with 4 other arts organizations.

Key Responsibilities:

• General organizational oversight
• Manages and supervises a small team of professional staff
• Financial Management
• Artistic Vision Stewardship
• Hire, recruit, onboard and manage staff
• Fund development and grant-writing
• Strategic Planning and implementation
• Marketing and communications oversight
• Board relations
• Community and public relations
• Active of member of the Commons Executive Committee

Working Conditions and Location:

This position is a hybrid position working out of The Commons at 401 Richmond, or other sites, and remote work. The position is 30 hours per week. Weekend or evening hours will be required. Some travel within Canada and internationally. Light lifting may be required.

About You

The successful candidate will have a combined in-depth knowledge of arts management, strong leadership and communication skills, and financial acumen. You have the experience to lead multiple simultaneous grant writing efforts and other funding development initiatives, understand and advocate for artist run centres, and are committed to the uplifting and professional development of racialized artists. You are passionate and knowledgeable about the South Asian arts eco-system (contemporary and historical), artists, and diasporic arts practices in Toronto, Canada, and internationally. You are able to lead a small team in a calm, compassionate, confident way that values collaboration, openness, and a healthy work culture. You are invested in maintaining the 401 Commons, a collectively run arts space in Toronto.

Qualifications:

• Minimum 5 years experience in the non-profits arts sector, preferably in a management or leadership role
• Experience writing grants and proposals
• Experience managing budget and expenses, including working with a bookkeeper, managing an audit, CADAC, and knowledge of investments.
• Experience managing staff
• Strong and effective communicator in writing, presentations and in interpersonal communication
• Demonstrated experience in strategic thinking and implementation
• Commitment to anti-racism, equity and accessibility principles and actions
• Understanding of the arts sector and the history and trajectory of South Asian arts nationally and internationally
• Knowledge of artist run culture in Canada
• Familiarity with non-profit governance
• Creative problem solving
• Responsive to community
• Flexible and adaptable
• Will maintain SAVAC’s alignment with, and advocacy for, PACBI
• Novice fluency with one or more South Asian language is an asset but not required

What SAVAC Offers

• Salary: $68,000 per annum
• A benefits package
• Three weeks paid vacation
• Flexibility to work hybrid
• Serves as an international leader in advocacy and professional development initiatives for racialized artists.
• As an artist run centre, flexibility to maintain your own artist practice is welcome as negotiated
• The incoming Executive Director will receive a robust training and mentorship period with the outgoing ED and a number of other senior arts administrators.

How to Apply

This role is an existing position. Please send your resume and a maximum two-page cover letter, outlining how your skills, experience and interests align with this position, in one electronic file to: board@savac.net

Applications are due no later than Wednesday, March 4, 2026, 5pm ET.

Anticipated start date: April 2026

If you require an accommodation in order to participate in the recruitment process, please contact us at board@savac.net.

We thank all applicants for their interest in SAVAC, however based on the volume of applications received, we may only contact those selected for an interview.

SAVAC (South Asian Visual Arts Centre) is a not-for-profit, artist-run centre in Canada dedicated to cultivating and presenting the practices of artists of colour.. We support work that (in)directly addresses the ways histories of people of colour are represented alongside the story of ongoing colonialism on Turtle Island and post-colonial histories of the Global South. These works are challenging, experimental and offer multifarious perspectives on the contemporary world.

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SAVAC (South Asian Visual Arts Centre)
Suite 450, 401 Richmond St. W.
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8
Canada

www.savac.net
+1 416 542 1661
info@savac.net