The Polygon Gallery, the Griffin Art Projects, the Cité internationale des arts, the Embassy of France in Canada and the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris are partnering to launch a residency program, alternating each year for four years between Paris (2021, 2023) and Vancouver (2022, 2024).
The objective of this program is to provide opportunities to develop curatorial projects and foster cultural exchange in contemporary art in France and Western Canada.
The inaugural program was launched in October 2021 with a three-month residency at the Cité internationale des arts in the Marais district of central Paris and continued in 2022 with a three-month residency at the Griffin Art Projects in North Vancouver.

The residency provides:

• A round trip travel from the resident’s home to Vancouver (Western Canada), with additional travel funds within Western Canada to a maximum of $2,500.
• An allowance of $2,000 per month for 3 months.
• A production budget of $1,500.
• A furnished studio with work and living space (living room/workspace, bedroom, shared bathroom and kitchen) and Wi-Fi. Studios are not fully wheelchair accessible.

The resident will be supported by the Griffin Art Projects, which works closely with the Polygon Gallery to arrange meetings with Vancouver-based curators, artists and other industry professionals to assist the resident in the research and development of their curatorial project.

The resident will also benefit from the unique environment of the Griffin Art Projects, living alongside artists of all disciplines (visual arts, performance, music, film), nationalities and generations.

The residency is open to curators:

• Of French nationality,
• Living in France,
• Who can justify of a professional activity of 5 years minimum.

Artists and writers who have a curatorial practice are eligible.

Applicants must propose a curatorial project describing the research and approach they intend to develop.

The project may involve collaborations with cultural partners across Canada such as institutions, art centers, research centers, artists and cultural associations.

The online application form is available here. Applications will also include the following documents written in English (in PDF format only, in a single file):

• A file presenting one or more recent curatorial projects (max. 15 pages)
• A curriculum vitae (max. 3 pages)
• A statement of intention (max. 2 pages) on the project, the curatorial approach and the motivations for participating in the residency program. This note can be completed with a short video testifying to the motivation to participate in the residency program (max. 3 minutes)
• Two letters of recommendation

To submit your application, a google account is required. If you do not have one, please create one here. If you are unable to access the online registration, please contact the Commissions Department of the Cité internationale des arts: [email protected]

Once your application is finalized, you will not be able to modify it. We thank you for filling in this form as thoroughly as possible.

Group applications (duo, couple, collective) are not eligible.

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to an online interview with the jury, which is composed of representatives from Polygon Gallery, Griffin Art Projects, the Cité internationale des arts, the French Embassy in Canada and the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris.

In addition to evaluating the candidate’s training and professional background, the jury will pay particular attention to the quality and feasibility of the project, the need for a residency in Canada and the work plan. Culturally diverse applicants are encouraged.

Each applicant will be informed by email of the status of their application.

• Deadline for applications: May 22, 2022 inclusive.
• Announcement of the winners: From mid-June 2022.
• Residency dates: September 4 to November 30, 2022. If COVID restrictions prohibit travel, the residency may be postponed.

Missla Libsekal is an independent writer and curator of visual arts in Vancouver. She was awarded an artistic residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris from October 2021 to January 2022.

“The vibrant international community hosted by the Cité gave me the opportunity to enter a new universe of ideas and individuals.”

Focused on how humans will manage to share the planet after 150 years of dramatic transformation, she asks questions about sustainability in the face of mass extinctions of plant and animal species, occupation of key landscapes, and approaches that might foster biodiversity in natural elements. It is a search through the past for what kinds of archives and libraries might provide the solutions for humans to govern while having perpetual positive effects on the landscape, and to correct the detrimental trajectories they take, if still possible.

This survey is built on the exhibition Beyond What We See. Once Upon a time, once upon a future, at the Musée Les Abattoirs in Toulouse in 2021. The French cultural and artistic landscape has allowed her to research the past of these Living Libraries, visiting numerous exhibitions in the Paris area. Through the Paris/Vancouver Curatorial Residency program, she has had the opportunity to meet many artists and individuals related to her research and particularly specialized on the French context.

Amy Kazymerchyk is a curator of visual arts in Vancouver. She is receiving an artistic residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris from April to June 2022.

“I would like to meet artists whose experiences could be considered ‘foreign’ to the dominant French cultural traditions, because they are thought of as diasporic, bi-cultural or naturalized.”

In France, the Canadian curator wants to explore how artists think about themes of interiority- exteriority, openness-closure, in another national context. The aim is to deepen this reflection, which has already been addressed in her exhibition “Thought, Outside” at the Western Front in Vancouver (2020-2021). The project questions the notion of the outside (as an existence beyond a geographical demarcation, not legally recognized, alien to a culture) and the modes of representation of identity, through works from the 1970s to the 1990s.

The French cultural and artistic landscape has greatly influenced his work to date. French post-modern thought, for example, has accompanied his reflection on the concepts of “other”, “foreign” or “hospitality”. Thanks to the Paris / Vancouver Curatorial Residency program, Amy Kazymerchyk will have the opportunity to experience French creation in person.

Her work is inspired by the cinematographic work of multi-awarded director Agnès Varda, notably the film “Sans toit ni loi” (or “Vagabond”). Directed in 1985, the feature film portrays the relationship of our societies to the marginalized and the conditions of integration of migrant populations in France.

Clelia Coussonnet is a French independent art curator, writer and editor. She will stay at the Griffin Art Projects in North Vancouver from September 4 to November 30, 2022. She is active in various countries such as France, the United States, Bulgaria, Morocco, the Czech Republic and Tunisia.

Influenced by her training in political science, Clelia is committed to interdisciplinarity and to the way visual arts interrogate political, social and spiritual themes. She works with artists who question social norms and seek to deconstruct power structures.

For the past years, Clelia has been focusing on the question of botanical politics and the influence of power relations on plants and examining how systems of meaning have left their mark on nature during periods of imperialism, colonialism and globalization. She is now exploring marine ecosystems in the way they are affected by toxicity and contamination, and is focusing on the phenomena of circulation, production and dissemination of knowledge across man-made boundaries. This can be seen in her project Spoiled Water Spilled (2020) with the Ballet National de Marseille and in her upcoming exhibition at CAC Cincinnati (USA).

In the pursue her researchs, she will, thanks to her stay in Canada, link these three combined aspects, as well as focus on the creation of a specific project which will enable her to confront the initiatives present in Vancouver thanks to the various sources of inspiration and the interlocutors she will be able to meet.