Banff Centre’s Application, Student Registration and Payment Systems, including the Student Portal, will be unavailable from 4pm Tuesday Nov. 5th to 12 noon Wednesday Nov. 6th due to planned maintenance. Any questions please contact admissions@banffcentre.ca.
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Julianna Zwierciadlowska-Rhymer, Banff Centre 2023, photo by Rita Taylor.
Banff Artist in Residence (BAiR) Early Career is an immersive program of studio practice, creative exploration, critical feedback, and mentorship for visual artists of all ages in the early stages of their careers.
Open to visual artists working across mediums, BAiR Early Career combines the artistic freedom of a self-directed residency with the supportive benefits of an organized program. As well as having the space to create, research, and experiment, participants are part of a community of emerging artists committed to developing and expanding their practice.
Artists have access to shared production facilities and knowledgeable staff who are available to provide technical support and assistance.
The residency experience is supported with lectures, workshops, and individual studio visits with faculty as well as dialogue amongst peers.
Visual Arts residencies offer a structured program where visual artists, curators, and other arts professionals come together to create work and discuss pertinent themes. Through peer interaction, discussion groups, studio work, formal lectures, and studio visits from world-renowned visiting faculty, artists and curators, participants gain new ideas and insights that can be applied to creative exploration and professional development of their work.
Artists are provided with a studio, accessible 24 hours a day, as well as access to our extensive facilities.
This residency is for visual artists of all ages who have completed formal training in visual arts at the post-secondary level or who have equivalent experience and recognition from their peers acquired through traditional knowledge and practices.
Priority will be given to artists who have completed relevant training within three years and who have not previously attended a residency at Banff Centre.
Adriana Kuiper (b.1973) lives and works in Sackville, New Brunswick in the territory of Mi’kma’ki. Her interdisciplinary work centres around themes that explore sheltering spaces, fear, protection, and human fallibility. Through strategies of reinvention, she re-examines a structure’s ability to provide safety and refuge against overwhelming forces, natural or otherwise. Kuiper’s work looks at how fears and justified anxieties relating to current events such as climate change, the global pandemic, divisive politics, and silenced voices have driven people to both retreat and to resist. Kuiper often collaborates with her partner Ryan Suter and has completed a number of public site-specific works in the Magdalen Islands, QC; Halifax, NS: and in Dawson City, YK. Kuiper has shown her work extensively across Canada and internationally. She is a professor in sculpture and drawing at Mount Allison University.
Alyssa Fearon holds the position of Director/Curator at Dunlop Art Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan. Integral to Fearon’s curatorial practice is a community-based approach that seeks to foster connections with groups that have been historically and systemically excluded from the gallery milieu. In 2018, Fearon was inaugural Curator of Nuit Blanche Toronto’s Scarborough zone. Fearon was also Curator at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, 2018 – 2020. Raised in Scarborough, Ontario, Fearon is now based on Treaty 4 territory in Regina, Saskatchewan. She holds an MBA in Arts Management from the Schulich School of Business, an MA in Art History from York University, and was a Salzburg Global Fellow.
April Britski is the National Executive Director of CARFAC, Canada’s national association for visual artists. She has worked and volunteered as an arts administrator since 1998, and joined the staff of CARFAC in 2005. She is a co-founder of Artists’ Legal Services Ottawa and the Visual Arts Alliance, and she has served on several boards of cultural policy and artist-run organizations. April’s primary responsibility at CARFAC is the development and implementation of organizational policies and strategies related to artists’ legal and economic rights. She is actively involved in the research, development, and coordination of advocacy efforts, including CARFAC’s Artist’s Resale Right campaign. She assists with negotiating collective agreements for visual and media artists under the Status of the Artist Act, as well as other national voluntary agreements with presenters. Originally from Saskatchewan, April currently resides on the traditional unceded territories of the Coast Salish Nations including the Kwikwetlem, Musqueam, Skxwú7mesh, and Tsleil-Waututh Peoples.
Your program fee includes a single bedroom on the Banff Centre campus for the duration of your program.
Get connected with other artists on campus and focus on your projects in a creative environment while we take care of the day-to-day essentials.
Using a credit-based system to dine on campus, our flexible meal plans allow you to select meals according to your own needs during your stay. Banff Centre can respond to most dietary requests.
The Full Flex meal plan is equivalent to $58 credit per day, equivalent to breakfast, lunch and dinner at our Buffet service.
The Paul D. Fleck Library and Archives - Current Services
The Library is delighted to support Banff Centre Participants, Artists, and Faculty with the following services:
Please email library@banffcentre.ca or archives@banffcentre.ca for more information or assistance.
Your program fee includes free access to the swimming pool, climbing gym and fitness suite as well as discounted rates for classes at the Sally Borden Fitness and Recreation Centre.
Create in one of our specialized studios and utilize shared production facilities in printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, photography, digital media and more (subject to additional fees)
A series of outstanding guest artists and curators will give free public talks and hold informal discussions.
Enrich your experience and get to know other artists on campus by taking advantage of the activities and support provided by our Participant Resources team.
This program offers opportunities to showcase your work-in-progress in [one of our performance venues / an open studios event in Glyde Hall].
Join in group seminars/workshops.
Enjoy special artist rates for ticketed performances or complimentary access to events.
Application fee: $65 ($35 for applicants who identify as Indigenous)
*Financial Aid of 100% is available to cover tuition, and 50% is available to offset food and accommodation costs.
Please answer the Financial Aid question in Slideroom during Part 3 of the application process.
Help fund your experience at Banff Centre. View a compiled list of national and international opportunities here.
Banff Centre will issue official tax receipts for eligible tuition fees and financial assistance and awards as required by the Income Tax Act. You will receive a T2202 (Tuition and Enrolment Certificate) for eligible tuition fees paid and a T4A (Statement of Pension, Retirement, Annuity, and Other Income) for applicable financial assistance and awards.
Learn more about the steps to Complete Your Application.
A one-page resume describing your academic, artistic, professional, and other relevant artistic experience.
A 500 word description of why you wish to attend this program, what you hope to learn or achieve and what impact it could have on your artistic practice.
Provide a 100-word summary of the proposed project. These summaries will be used as a narrative for administrative and public use.
In 500 - 1000 words, describe the conceptual framework of your proposed project, your weekly execution plan, details of the mediums you propose to use and your level of knowledge in the processes required, and outline any specific technical or support requirements.
Outline all studio, equipment, software, facility, or staff support requested in our upload tool. Final resource allocation is at the discretion of the department.
Provide 10 samples of your artistic work. Curators and researchers must submit three samples of written work. File sizes and specifications are available in our upload tool.
Participants are selected by impartial adjudicators on the basis of their submitted material. In addition to artistic merit, consideration will be given to the likelihood that the artist's work will benefit from the program.
Please note, application fees are non-refundable and go towards supporting the review of each program application and the adjudication process. All submitted applications are reviewed by a panel of adjudicators, and due to the competitive nature of Banff Centre’s programs, we do not provide feedback on applications or guarantee acceptances into programs. All applicants will be notified of their application status via email following adjudication.
Banff Centre welcomes domestic and international applicants for this program. Please note, Banff Centre programs do not meet Canadian Student Visa eligibility requirements, you must obtain a Visitor Visa to enter Canada. Accepted individuals are responsible for identifying and complying with the immigration requirements to enter Canada as a visitor from their country of origin. Current wait times to receive a visa are much longer than normal, so applicants who require a Visitor Visa should check the current expected processing times prior to applying.
All programs, faculty, dates, fees, and offers of financial assistance are subject to change. Program fee is subject to applicable taxes. Non-refundable fees and deposits will be retained upon cancellation. Any other fees are refunded at the discretion of Banff Centre.
For questions on preparing your application, please contact Admissions:
