Facilitator: Lisa Cristinzo
Program Dates: June 5 – June 19, 2023. (Check in is 1pm, Monday June 5th. Check out is 11 am, Monday June 19th.)
Submission Deadline: March 15th, 2023
Cost: $1,275 plus HST (private bedroom + private studio for 2 weeks.) or $1,075 plus HST (private bedroom + shared studio for 2 weeks. Please note that shared studio spaces are limited.)
Led by Lisa Cristinzo, “i made it through the wilderness” is a two-week visual arts residency on Mnisiing/Toronto Island for artists creating work about and within landscape and who wish to spend time contemplating what it means to be an artist at this point in our climate history.
We will be examining the importance of landscape art in the context of the deforestation of 85% of the world’s forests, uncontrollable wildfires, and catastrophic climate hazards that disproportionately affect the most vulnerable. In the geological era of Anthropocene, an era defined by humans’ extensive impact on the earth’s geologic makeup, how can humans deepen and balance the relationship between the material and energetic world? What if we held vital matter and its properties with the same rights and freedom, we all strive to have? And are artists the ones that are truly in the position to make ‘matter’ matter?
This residency is an attempt to collectively understand more deeply through the practice of art the vibrancy and agency of the world around us. Although the theme of the residency sounds somber, participants will be encouraged to access this knowledge through gratitude, play, and emergent experiences in co-authorship with the site and with each other. There will be a full program of guest artists, studio visits, studio time, time outside and fireside chats. This is a call for 8-10 painters and those who work in the expanded field of paint, such as sculpture, installation, performance, and site responsive work.
I made it through the wilderness
Somehow I made it through
Didn’t know how lost I was
Until I found you
– Madonna, Like a Virgin
DETAILS
Residency limited 8-10 Artists.
Artists are responsible for getting themselves and their gear to Jack Layton Ferry Terminal and onto the ferry. Once on the Island, Artscape Staff will provide transportation to the centre.
FACILITATOR BIO
This is a facilitated residency, but the aim is to work non-hierarchically and in co-authorship across the collective of visiting artists and participants.
Lisa Cristinzo (She/her) is a queer painter and installation artist, and a first-generation Canadian settler living in T’karonto on Turtle Island. Cristinzo’s large-scale painting installations traverse natural history, climate hazards, materialism, and magic. She holds a BFA from OCAD U and an MFA from York University, where she received a graduate scholarship and SSHRC federal funding for her research into fire and climate change. Cristinzo’s writing and artwork about fire was recently published in Fire Season II by Liz Tooney-Wiese and Amory Abbott. Along with being an artist, she has spent over a decade managing arts programs and community cultural hubs, including Artscape Gibraltar Point, an artist residency and event space on Mnisiing/Toronto Island.
While completing a Masters degree, a medical diagnosis prompted Cristinzo to conduct her work outside of institutions both academic and medical. Through a Canada Council for the Arts research-creation grant she spent 60 days at four artist residencies, including a residency at Vermont Studio Center, where she explored the tradition of “plein air” painting through the lens of climate change. “i made it through the wilderness”, 2023’s thematic residency at Artscape Gibraltar Point, is inspired by her experience.[www.Lisacristinzo.com]
Virtual/In Person Visiting Artists
Christina Battle is an artist based in amiskwacîwâskahikan, (also known as Edmonton, Alberta), within the Aspen Parkland: the transition zone where prairie and forest meet. Her practice focuses on thinking deeply about the concept of disaster: its complexity, and the intricacies that are entwined within it. Much of this work extends from her recent PhD dissertation (2020) which looked closer to community responses to disaster: the ways in which they take shape, and especially to how online models might help to frame and strengthen such response. [www.cbattle.com]
Jonathan Green is of Mi’kmaq and Inuit, British and Scottish heritage from Labrador City, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. He does not know a lot about his indigenous heritage but is trying to learn more. Green earned an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Alberta in 2016, a BFA from Memorial University of Newfoundland – Grenfell Campus. He has been a Visual Arts Studio Work study at the Banff Centre. He has canoed down the Yukon River as part of the Canadian Wilderness Artist Residency. He currently resides in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada at his studio Campsite Press. [www.jonathansgreen.com]
Leida Engler’s formal education includes a Sciences degree from McMaster University and studies at Toronto School of Art. Leida is a dedicated artist, peacemaker, environmental and community activist and has been a Plein Air painter since 1980. Whenever Leida and her husband Jerry traveled around North America, Plein Air painting became the tool of record keeping. Leida was co-founder of Shadowland Theatre and band leader in Caribana from 1985-2005 where she built costumes for the Trinidad Carnival, in Toronto and Trinidad and Tobago. In 1993 Leida and Jim Belisle and Jerry Englar created L’Ecole de Faux Arts/Fake Art School, a base for their love of painting outside, PLEIN AIR.
Leida Engler and Jim Belisle (Landscape Architect/Painter) from the Fake Art School will be conducting an Artist Talk and taking participants on a Plein Air excursion.
A full schedule of programming will be shared at a later date.
STUDIO/WORKSPACE & ACCOMMODATION
Participants have access to private studios (unless shared is requested). Studios come with a large worktable, work chairs, desk lamps, power bar, and of course access to the public park for those that prefer “plein air”.
All participants will be provided with private bedrooms. Bedrooms have a double bed (including a full set of linens), closet and/or dresser and shared bathrooms. Participants have access to a communal kitchen with cooking and food storage amenities, including fridge space, stove, microwave, coffee maker, appliances, cutlery, plates etc. Residents are responsible for their own meals. While grocery delivery can be made to the island service is not daily: please bring food with you on arrival.
Artists should plan to bring all materials relevant to their practice and creation/presentation process. Non-toxic practices please.
Not all residency locations are wheelchair accessible. Please inquire for further details, lisacristinzo@gmail.com
COVID-19
Artists must be fully vaccinated (two+ doses) or provide a doctors note for a medical exemption. Artists will be expected to comply with all of Artscape Gibraltar Point’s health and safety protocols even if they differ from what might be expected elsewhere. Artists coming from abroad must comply with Government of Canada rules for travel to Canada. See: https://travel.gc.ca/travel-covid
FEES & SUPPORT
Regretfully, we are unable to provide honoraria or stipends to cover travel or the fees associated with attending this residency. However, we are happy to provide letters of support to any funding programs to which artists wish to apply. We encourage applicants to pursue funding opportunities afforded them by their national, regional, local and departmental funding agencies. Please visit ArtsUnite (a project of Artscape) for some resources on funding and applying for grants. ArtsReach also has a useful calendar to explore grants.
$1,275 plus HST (private bedroom + private studio for 2 weeks.)
$1,075 plus HST (private bedroom + shared studio for 2 weeks. Please note that shared studio spaces are limited.)
TO APPLY
LINK: https://form.jotform.com/223485877002055
This is a call for 8-10 artists. Individuals at various ages and abilities, identify as Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Colour (BIPOC), and/or a person with disabilities, and/or diverse gender identifications (LGBTQIA2+) are encouraged to apply.
If you have any questions or concerns with the application process, please contact lisacristinzo@gmail.com
ABOUT ARTSCAPE GIBRALTAR POINT Located in the former Toronto Island Public and Natural Science School, Artscape Gibraltar Point offers 35,000 square feet of affordable retreat space, artist studios and accommodations for artists and creative thinkers. The tranquil, idyllic setting is world-renowned as a centre for members of the artistic and non-profit communities to think, experiment, collaborate and share ideas.
More than 200 artists a year from across the globe experiment and create art through self-directed artist retreats and thematic residencies hosted in our overnight accommodations. In addition to hosting a maximum of 20 visiting artists at any given time, fifteen long-term artist work studios provide space for a range of painters, sculptors, musicians, filmmakers and a recording studio – all of whom contribute to the unique and collaborative atmosphere at Artscape Gibraltar Point.
ABOUT ARTSCAPE Artscape is a not-for-profit urban development organization that makes space for creativity and transforms communities. Artscape is the operator of Artscape Gibraltar Point. Our work involves clustering creative people together in real estate projects that serve the needs of the arts and cultural community and advance multiple public policy objectives, private development interests, community and neighbourhood aspirations and philanthropic missions.