Call for Applications: City of Toronto Artist in Residence (AiR) Program 2025-2026

Nkweshkoodaadidaa Ekobiiyag by Maria Hupfield, the City of Toronto’s inaugural Artist-in-Residence (2023-2024)

The City of Toronto invites Toronto-based professional artists to submit Expressions of Interest to participate in the second iteration of the Artist in Residence (AiR) program.

Deadline: May 28, 2025, 12pm

The City of Toronto’s Artist in Residence (AiR) program was originally developed as part of the Toronto Public Art Strategy, which launched in 2019. Every two years, a professional contemporary artist will be embedded within a City of Toronto department, incorporating creativity in city building.

For the 2025-2026 iteration, the Artist in Residence will work within the City of Toronto Archives. The Archives holds a wide variety of historical documents that can help answer research questions related to Toronto. The collection contains municipal government records, which include Council minutes, departmental files and reports, and non-government records, which include photographs, letters and architectural plans created by private individuals. Providing public access to archival resources is a cornerstone of the Archives mandate and the resident artist will be offered supports from professional staff over the course of their term to facilitate and enhance their engagement with historical information. These include:

• Training in approaches to archival research (previous experience is not required)
• Assistance identifying and retrieving archival records relevant to research questions
• Access to digitization services for project-specific needs
• Support accessing records and information from City of Toronto departments and agencies
• Dedicated workspace and access to public Wi-Fi.

The Artist in Residence term will be 16 months in duration, including a minimum of 60 hours (spread across the first 6 months) working with the City of Toronto Archives in a period of embedded research. Following this, the artist will embark on developing a temporary, public-facing project, which may take any number of forms.

Project Timeline:

• September 2025: Residency begins
• September 2025 to February 2026: Research within the Archives
• February 2026 to May 2026: Planning the public-facing project
• June 2026 to December 2026: Installation of final project (and any related engagement events)

Location:

For the 2025-2026 iteration, the Artist in Residence will work within the City of Toronto Archives (255 Spadina Road). Project planning meetings can be done remotely.

As this is a working residency (not live-in), this opportunity is only open to professional artists based within the City of Toronto.

Budget:

$100,000 plus HST (an artist fee of $60,000 and a production budget of $40,000).

Selection Process:

A specially convened jury will review submissions against the following criteria. The selected artist will demonstrate:

• An understanding of the opportunity and the Artist In Residence program objectives
• Alignment between their experience and artistic practice, with research that can be done at the Toronto Archives or a relevant archival collection held by the City
• Experience working both independently and collaboratively
• Artistic excellence and the perceived ability to implement a public-facing project.

A maximum of four artists will be selected for interviews, to be scheduled at the end of June 2025.

How to Apply:

This call is open to Toronto-based professional artists. We encourage artists that are Indigenous, Black, people of colour, women, 2SLGBTQ+, people with disabilities and members of other marginalized communities to apply.

Applicants are encouraged to determine if their research interests can be supported by our collection by searching the Archives’ online catalogue. Instructions for using the database are available on the Archives’ website. A general overview of the Archives’ collection is also available online. If you wish to visit the Archives in person, learn how to book an appointment.

Interested artists should apply through the online application form. The form will request the following information:

• Letter of Interest: explain why you are interested in working within the City of Toronto Archives, outline your research topics or questions, identify relevant archival collections held by the City, and describe how this opportunity relates to your practice and experience.
• CV
• Maximum 5 images of recent work, with descriptions.
• Names and contact information for two references.

Applications must be received by: May 28, 2025, 12pm

For questions, please contact Katriina Campitelli, Public Art Officer, at publicartcompetitions@toronto.ca.