UPDATE: The deadline to apply has been extended to October 16, 2023.
The City of Ottawa and Arts Network Ottawa are partnering on two Artist-in-Residence in Government awards intended to identify creative approaches to answering civic questions and bridge the gap between artists, neighbourhoods, and municipal government.
The position is an 18-month contract with an award of $40,000. Interested artists can apply until September 27, 2023.
Designed by Melanie Yugo.
“We’ve invested in this kind of work before, and this is the next level up,” says Alex Maltby, program manager at Arts Network Ottawa.
This position, Maltby says, offers the city a “creative consultant,” charged with meeting the needs of their community in a creative way.
In a spring information session, Randy Engstrom from Third Way Creative in Seattle said that the new Artist-in-Residence post offers “an opportunity for artists to be transformative in their community and to gain better access and understanding of how government works.”
“One possible impact: new city protocols, processes and policies are established to reduce systemic barriers and create equitable and shared opportunities in civic and public art practices,” Engstrom said in that information session.
The positions are open-ended, says Maltby, and a lot depends on the winning artists’ artistic disciplines and the communities’ needs. One thing that is certain, however, is that the position will result in tangible outcomes for people to engage with; and it will be co-creative with the neighbourhood.
It’s a new position for the city which “uses art as a tool for social outcomes,” Maltby says.
The selected artists-in-residence will be a part of the Integrated Neighbourhood Services Team (INST) of the City of Ottawa. The department is especially interested in “leveraging the opportunity to shift narratives about certain Ottawa neighbourhoods,” says Maltby. However, the artist’s involvement is not limited to the INST department, and this could become a position in which the artist-in-residence consults with multiple city departments to come up with creative solutions to problems.
Maltby stressed that there are a lot of unknowns and it is impossible to know now what form this partnership will take. But he hopes that it will be transformative, both for the artist and city government. Arts Network Ottawa has already created a tentative framework to evaluate and measure the changes brought about by this position.
All artists are welcome to apply, regardless of their artistic or theoretical practice. The only requirements are creativity, a commitment to civic issues, and a desire to do creative problem-solving.
Interested artists can apply here until September 27. The residency will start in late October and last 18 months. Applicants are encouraged to email or speak to Arts Network Ottawa if they have any questions.
There is an in-person and online information session on September 13. You can register here.
