Join us for an engaging evening of nonfiction storytelling at this Literary Cabaret, a sharing of works in the Literary Journalism residency at Banff Centre. Across three nights, explore boundary-pushing readings from participants and faculty mentors.

The three-week residency brings together writers working on long-form journalism, narrative nonfiction, cultural criticism, and reported essays. Participants focus on deeply researched, real-world storytelling—where reporting meets literary craft.

This chapter is hosted by Dr. Cheryl Thompson, a leading scholar and public intellectual whose work brings archival research, cultural history, and contemporary journalism into dialogue. Her books include Beauty in a Box: Detangling the Roots of Canada’s Black Beauty Culture and Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom, 1812-1897.

Enjoy a drink from the bar and immerse yourself in a vibrant literary atmosphere. Doors open at 6:15 p.m., with readings starting at 7 p.m. Afterward, mingle with the writers and faculty until 9:30 p.m. 

Literary Journalism is generously supported by the Flanagan Foundation, Fondation David R. Graham, and the Rogers Communications Chair in Literary Journalism Endowment.

Visit the studios of this summer’s Banff Artist in Residence (BAiR) participants and see how they pushed creative boundaries during their six weeks at Banff Centre. Engage with participating artists about their processes as you explore their ideas in development and works in progress.

Summer BAiR is a transformative residency that provides mentorship, critical feedback, and studio time to visual artists and curators at any stage in their careers.

Open to visual artists working across mediums, Summer BAiR combines the freedom of a self-directed residency with the supportive benefits of an organized program. As well as receiving the space to create, research, and experiment, participants are part of an international community of contemporary artists committed to developing and expanding their practice.

This is an exciting opportunity for the participants to share their work, and for the public to ask them about their processes. Artists, art appreciators, and curious first-time viewers alike are encouraged to attend. 

Visual Arts is supported by Fondation DRG and the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.

Join us for an afternoon Visual Arts Open Lecture with Patty Chang, an acclaimed contemporary artist working in performance, video, text, photography, and sculpture.

Chang’s recent work looks for ways to connect with ecologies and systems larger than the self. Chang will present on her projects, The Wandering Lake, a multi-year project considering human-engineered water and human life; Learning Endings, a collaborative project exploring porpoise necropsy and the emotional labour of science; and Abyssal, a project on porcelain, Chinese immigrant labour, and the oceans.

Chang is on faculty for the Summer Banff Artist in Residence (BAiR) program, which combines the freedom of a self-directed residency with the supportive benefits of an organized program. As well as receiving the space to create, research, and experiment, participants are part of an international community of contemporary artists committed to developing and expanding their practice. 

This event is part of the Visual Arts Open Lecture Series, which presents talks by leading Canadian and international artists, curators, and academics.

Visual Arts is supported by Fondation DRG and the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.

Join us for an afternoon Visual Arts Open Lecture with Basia Irland, an author, activist, and pioneer of ecological art, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

This Fulbright Scholar will give an illustrated presentation about her international large-scale water projects, including A Gathering of Waters, which fosters dialogue and connects communities along the entire length of rivers; Waterborne Disease Scrolls, based on research with epidemiologists; and Ice Book, consisting of sculptures embedded with native seed texts that are floated down global streams to aid river restoration. Her projects have been featured in over 70 international publications.

Irland is on faculty for the Summer Banff Artist in Residence (BAiR) program, which combines the freedom of a self-directed residency with the supportive benefits of an organized program. As well as receiving the space to create, research, and experiment, participants are part of an international community of contemporary artists committed to developing and expanding their practice.    

This event is part of the Visual Arts Open Lecture Series, which presents talks by leading Canadian and international artists, curators, and academics.

Visual Arts is supported by Fondation DRG and the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.

Join us for an afternoon Visual Arts Open Lecture with contemporary artist MacKenzie Kelly-Frère, who creates breathtaking sculptural and installation works.

As a contemporary artist working with place-based approaches to weaving, Kelly-Frère is fascinated by the myriad ways that cloth entangles cultures, histories, and technologies. In this Summer Banff Artist in Residence (BAiR) faculty talk, Kelly-Frère will discuss plant and material fibres, and their application in a new body of work exploring the ecology of the prairies and foothills regions.

Open to visual artists working across mediums, Summer BAiR combines the freedom of a self-directed residency with the supportive benefits of an organized program. As well as receiving the space to create, research, and experiment, participants are part of an international community of contemporary artists committed to developing and expanding their practice.  

This event is part of the Visual Arts Open Lecture Series, which presents talks by leading Canadian and international artists, curators, and academics.

Visual Arts is supported by Fondation DRG and the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.

Join us for an afternoon Visual Arts Open Lecture with Governor General’s Award-winning artist Germaine Koh, who works across disciplines.  

Looking at the significance of communal experiences and the connections between people, technology, and natural systems, Koh’s ongoing projects include the Slow Fashion Season events, encouraging sustainability in textiles and clothing; the Home Made Home initiative, exploring alternative forms of housing; the League project, focused on play as a form of creative practice; and a land-based artist residency. Her presentation will focus on the value of hands-on making.

Koh is on faculty for the Summer Banff Artist in Residence (BAiR) program. Open to visual artists working across mediums, BAiR combines the freedom of a self-directed residency with the supportive benefits of an organized program. As well as receiving the space to create, research, and experiment, participants are part of an international community of contemporary artists committed to developing and expanding their practice.

This event is part of the Visual Arts Open Lecture Series, which presents talks by leading Canadian and international artists, curators, and academics.

Visual Arts is supported by Fondation DRG and the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.

Visit the studios of this summer’s Nomadisms residency participants and see how they pushed creative boundaries during their four weeks at Banff Centre. Engage with participating artists about their processes as you explore their ideas in development and works in progress.

Nomadisms is a project-based residency that provides mentorship and studio time to visual artists working in a wide range of possible mediums, including ceramics, digital media, painting, performance art, and sculpture.

The residency invites artists to engage with the theme of nomadism as both a critical and aesthetic framework. Across their collaborations and creations, participants approach nomadism as a site of inquiry and a form of attentiveness to the earth.  

This is an exciting opportunity for the participants to share their work, and for the public to ask them about their processes. Artists, art appreciators, and curious first-time viewers alike are encouraged to attend. 

Visual Arts is supported by Fondation DRG and the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.

This faculty- and participant-led event brings together films, performances, and DJ sets to explore nightlife as a space of community building.

Through nightclubbing, boundaries dissolve and the club emerges as an open site of freedom, encounter, and collective expression: bodies gather, rhythms connect, and community is forged in the dark.

The event stems from Nomadisms, a project-based residency that provides mentorship and studio time to visual artists working in a wide range of possible mediums, including ceramics, digital media, painting, performance art, and sculpture.

The residency invites artists to engage with the theme of nomadism as both a critical and aesthetic framework. Across their collaborations and creations, participants approach nomadism as a site of inquiry and a form of attentiveness to the earth.  

Visual Arts is supported by Fondation DRG and the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.

Join us for an afternoon Visual Arts talk with artist Meriem Bennani, whose debut film Bouchra played at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.

The creator of ground-breaking video installations and sculptures, Bennani combines elements of reality TV, documentary films, telenovelas, and animated cartoons. Bennani exaggerates media tropes to describe what she calls a “hyperactivity of genre,” with her work frequently being rooted in Moroccan life, online and off. In her talk, Bennani will discuss her practice as it relates to the theme of the Nomadisms residency, for which she’s on faculty.

Nomadisms provides mentorship and studio time to visual artists working with a wide range of possible mediums, including ceramics, digital media, painting, performance art, and sculpture.

The residency invites artists to engage with the theme of nomadism as both a critical and aesthetic framework. Across their collaborations and creations, participants approach nomadism as a site of inquiry and a form of attentiveness to the earth. 

This event is part of the Visual Arts Open Lecture Series, which presents talks by leading Canadian and international artists, curators, and academics.

Visual Arts is supported by Fondation DRG and the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.

Join us for an afternoon Visual Arts talk with Paris-based artist-scholar Maïa Tellit Hawad.

What does it mean to inhabit the Sahara nomadically today?

How are futures dreamed and invented from territories marked by environmental catastrophe and territorial dispossession?

Drawing on Tuareg nomadic imaginaries of land and relation, this talk focuses on counter-fields, expressed through gestures of ambush, camouflage, and the mending of a wounded desert. Through decolonial literary and artistic works that reclaim confiscated horizons, it examines Indigenous gestures of resistance, resilience, and fugitivity as ways of resignifying the desert as a space of possibility, creativity, and transnational solidarity.

Hawad is on faculty for Nomadisms, a project-based residency that provides mentorship and studio time to visual artists working in a wide range of possible mediums, including ceramics, digital media, painting, performance art, and sculpture.

The residency invites artists to engage with the theme of nomadism as both a critical and aesthetic framework. Across their collaborations and creations, participants approach nomadism as a site of inquiry and a form of attentiveness to the earth. 

This event is part of the Visual Arts Open Lecture Series, which presents talks by leading Canadian and international artists, curators, and academics.

Visual Arts is supported by Fondation DRG and the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.