Call for Artists & Designers: Dying.

Dying.

Dying. invites participants to think about their relationship with life and death as a process; encouraging heart-level conversations about difficult, often taboo topics. This exhibition seeks to promote diverse perspectives, sparking public conversation through opportunities for community creation and sites for participation. This space of extended empathy can allow for connection or catharsis, contributing to lasting benefits for viewers and participants.

Promoting conversation before crisis, Dying. is a proactive public exhibition space that is seeking art and design submissions surrounding significant topics such as: the many disparate cultural and spiritual experiences of death; caregiver, family member and friend experiences of death; first-person perspectives of dying; suicide and traumatic death; systemic issues of institutionalized death; how we speak with and relate to children with terminal illnesses; and Medical Assistance In Dying. Dying. is seeking immersive, interactive works that promote audience participation.

Taboo Health envisions Dying. as a catalyst for unpacking the uncomfortable: Why is death such a hard topic to approach? Dying. is in fact about holistically engaging with life, including death. How can we de-medicalize death and reprioritize human experience? What might we as individuals, and as a community, learn from sharing experiences of loss?

Dying. will be exhibited at the DesignTO Festival from January 17th to 26th, 2020. Previous exhibition venues have included: the OCADU Graduate Gallery and Artscape Youngplace. It is our aim to support conversations around death and dying at their many intersections, as speaking may seem impossible, but staying silent is harder.

Submission Deadline: September 27th, 2019.
Respond To: exhibitions.taboo@gmail.com

With your submission package, please include: your resume; a letter of intent that describes how your practice and/or your work aligns with the call; and low-res images of the work you’re submitting for review (for time-based works, please send up to a two-minute excerpt.) Selected artists and designers will receive an honorarium at the current CARFAC group exhibition rate, and will be notified through email by September 30th. Materials for the artworks are to be covered by the artist/designer.

For questions regarding submissions, please reach out to co-Curator Dana Snow at exhibitions.taboo@gmail.com

About Taboo Health

Taboo Health is a non-profit collective of health educators, creatives, and advocates who curate art and design exhibitions that address challenging health topics. We believe that art is powerful, evidence matters, and dialogue is necessary.

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