Overview
It is widely accepted that after water, the most popular drink in the world is tea. Grown, harvested, brewed, and consumed for millennia by vast cultural groups around the globe, tea is both a material substance and immaterial concept. Rituals and practices around the preparation and drinking of tea are deeply imbedded within the social, political, spiritual, religious, and natural landscapes and histories of Asia, Europe, North America, of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Through systems of labour and commodification, tea production and trade are inextricably linked to the history and process of colonization, yet also have the potential to contribute to decolonizing actions through inter-cultural sharing, community building, and friendship.
Visual Arts Residency – Meeting for Teas is an invitation to visual artists, working in any discipline or medium, to engage in research, creation, and studio practice that considers tea, in all its material and/or immaterial forms, as a site or starting point, for social engagement, inter-cultural exchange, identity, relationship and community building, decolonization, material transformation, and conceptual exploration.
In this thematic residency, participants will engage in a far-reaching dialogue on the social, historical, and contemporary aesthetic associations of tea to gain access to and explore cultural processes and attitudes. Led by Wayne Baerwaldt and Jennifer Crane, with guest faculty Karen Tam and Adrian Stimson, Visual Arts Residency – Meeting for Teas offers the opportunity to consider side-by-side notions of new materialism, inclusivity, performativity, and other forms of representation related to tea. The residency will examine a complex making and sharing process that has been closely tied to lived experience and expand the limits of the current discussions of tea sharing to include tea’s chemical properties, medicinal qualities, and its potential as a community-building medium.
What does the program offer?
This program offers a structured space where visual artists come together to create work and discuss the pertinent theme. Through peer interaction, discussion groups, studio work, formal lectures, and studio visits from world-renowned visiting faculty, participants gain new ideas and insights that can be applied to creative exploration and professional development of their work.
Who should apply?
This residency is for visual artists at all stages of their careers who have completed formal training at the post-secondary level, or who have equivalent experience and recognition from their peers through informal, specialized training such as mentorships, self-study, and traditional knowledge and practices.
Banff Centre invites applications from anywhere in the world, and artists of all ages (18+), backgrounds, gender identities, and expressions.
