Toronto Arts Council: Animating Historic Sites Program (Canada)

Deadline: 05-Jul-21

The Toronto Arts Council is pleased to announce applications for Animating Historic Sites Program to provide funding to arts organizations, collectives, or professional artists to re-imagine and animate selected Toronto museums and historic sites.

Toronto Arts Council is partnering with Toronto History Museums and Evergreen Brick Works on an initiative intended to create opportunities for Toronto artists to animate selected historic sites and museums within the City of Toronto located outside of the downtown core.

The goals of the program are to serve as a catalyst for people to see and think about historic places differently, and to provide alternative methods of historic interpretation.

This program envisions historic sites as °living museums” – vital public spaces of social interaction, where the past provides creative context for the future.

Categories

You may apply in one of two categories described below:

• Artist Residency: This grant category provides artists, collectives and arts organizations the opportunity to undertake a residency at Scarborough Museum, Montgomery’s Inn, or Evergreen Brick Works. Grant recipients will have the opportunity to conduct artistic research, investigate the site and its exhibits and archives, explore its surrounding landscape, historical and environmental context, and engage with the local community, and create new work. Artist Residencies are designed by the applicant, in consultation with the site or museum, and are intended to provide the opportunity for artists, collectives and arts organizations to undertake artistic research, engage local communities, and create new site-responsive work in collaboration with the site or museum. Emphasis for this category is on artistic research and creation of new work.
• Programming: This grant category provides the opportunity to create and deliver free site-specific programming at Gibson House, Montgomery’s Inn, Spadina Museum, Scarborough Museum, or Todmorden Mills. Programming may include activities such as: exhibitions, installations, performances, screenings, community-engaged arts activities, and other arts programming. Permanent exhibitions are not eligible. Emphasis for this category is on presentation of public programming (outdoor and/or digital).

Funding Information

• The maximum grant in each category is $30,000.

What does the program support?

• The Animating Historic Sites program provides funding to professional artists, arts organizations and collectives working in any artistic discipline (i.e.: theatre, dance, music, visual arts, media arts, community-engaged arts, Indigenous arts, disability arts, arts education, etc) to undertake free site-specific programming or an artist residency that respond to or interprets the selected site or museum. This grant may cover up to 100% of project costs, including artist fees, equipment rental, materials, insurance and other residency and programming costs.
• Please note: any public programming must take place in outdoor locations or digitally for projects in 2022 due to public health and safety protocols. All public programming must be free and open to the public.

Eligibility Criteria

• This grant program is open to professional artists, not-for-profit arts organizations or artist collectives operating on a not-for-profit basis.
• A professional artist is someone who has developed their skills through training and/or practice; is recognized as such by artists working in the same artistic field; actively practices his or her art; seeks payment for her/his work; and has a history of public presentation or exhibition.
• TAC recognizes that due to systemic barriers within the broader arts community (e.g. limited mainstream presentation opportunities for artists from equity-seeking communities) that some flexibility may be required in interpreting eligibility criteria to take into account equivalent professional experience and contexts. Potential applicants from equity-seeking communities are encouraged to discuss their eligibility with the Program Manager in advance of submitting an application.
• You may not apply as an individual and as a member of an organization or collective.
• TAC has two distinct funding envelopes. Applicants may be eligible to apply for one grant in each category per year, so long as they have no incomplete projects or outstanding final reports. The two funding envelopes include:
  • Arts Discipline funding (e.g. discipline-specific project grants and operating grants in Dance, Visual Arts, etc…) and
  • Strategic funding (e.g. Animating Historic Sites, Artists in the Library, Animating Toronto Parks etc…)
• For Individual applicants:
  • Individuals must be Canadian Citizens or Permanent Residents or have an application pending for Permanent Resident Status or be a Protected Person (approved refugee claimant). If requested, you must be able to provide documentation to verify this. (Grant recipients must have a Social Insurance Number.)
  • Individuals must have been a resident of the City of Toronto for at least one year prior to the deadline, and live and work in Toronto for at least 8 months a year. A Post Office Box address cannot be used to meet the residency requirement.
• For Organizations and Collectives:
  • Organizations and collectives must be incorporated non-profit organizations or unincorporated collectives which operate on a non-profit basis. A collective is defined as two or more artists working together under a group name, either on a single project (ad hoc) or on an ongoing basis. For collectives of two artists, both must be City of Toronto residents. For collectives of more than two artists, the majority of members must be City of Toronto residents.
  • Not-for-profit organizations that are not arts-based are eligible to apply to this grants program. Projects must include the collaborative involvement of professional artists with community members, as well as the payment of professional artist fees.
  • Organizations and collectives must be located in the City of Toronto. A Post Office Box address cannot be used to meet this requirement.

Ineligible

This program does not fund:

• Activities open only to a subscriber or membership base.
• Undergraduate students.
• Commercial businesses and for-profit organizations.
• Costs related to equipment purchase, capital projects (capital assets such as vehicles, computers or cameras to be used beyond the duration of the project), fundraising projects, deficit reduction, publishing and archiving projects, awards and award ceremonies, projects conceived for competitive purposes, art therapy, academic research;
• Activities taking place outside of the City of Toronto (such as research, touring, travel, accommodations)
• Ongoing operating costs, such as permanent staff salaries and general administration of an organization. This program is not intended to support an organization or collective’s ongoing activities
• Schools that are part of Ontario’s public or private education system;
• Educational and religious institutions, unless there is a clear separation in both programming and budget between their regular activities and their arts activities.

For more information, visit https://torontoartscouncil.org/grant-programs/tac-grants/animating-historic-sites