Travel Grants to Professionals in the Visual Arts
Deadlines
1 June, 1 October, 1 January, 1 March
Program Description
The Visual Arts Section of the Canada Council for the Arts provides a range of grants to recognize and support the independent creative work of professional Canadian artists of all cultures. These grants are intended for artists and independent critics and curators working in the following art forms: visual arts including fine craft and architecture. Travel Grants to Professionals in the Visual Arts contribute toward expenses incurred to travel to an event important to the artist’s, critic’s or curator’s career.
Three categories of support are provided under this program:
- Presentation Travel
- Travel to Artists’ Residencies, and
- Research-Related Travel.
Note: Artists, critics, curators and programmers working in the fields of new media and audio, film and video should apply under the Travel Grants to Media Arts Professionals program.
Support for Presentation Travel
This category of grant supports an artist’s travel, undertaken in response to an invitation from a professional arts organization, to attend a public presentation of his or her artworks in Canada or abroad.
Hosts must be professional visual arts organizations. To be considered professional, an organization must be a public art gallery, a museum or an artist-run centre that pays a professional fee to participating artists. This condition does not apply to professional venues outside of Canada, or to commercial galleries or juried art fairs in Canada or abroad.
This category also helps independent critics and curators of visual arts and fine craft, and practitioners, critics and curators of architecture, to present their work or ideas at a conference or symposium, in response to an invitation.
Support for Travel to Artists’ Residencies
This category of travel grant contributes toward an applicant’s travel costs to participate, in response to an invitation, in a residency in a national or international artistic community. Hosts must be professional organizations.
Applicants must show that they have been chosen through a juried selection process. They must also show that the host organization has offered financial support in the form of a confirmed grant, an artist’s fee, or a contribution to per diem and accommodation costs.
The length of the residency must not exceed 12 weeks. Artists who wish to participate in a residency of longer than 12 weeks may apply to other grants to professional artists programs offered by the Visual Arts Section.
You may obtain information on these programs on the Council’s website or by contacting the Visual Arts Section.
Support for Research-Related Travel
This category of travel grant is available only to independent critics and curators of visual arts and fine craft, and to practitioners, critics and curators of architecture. Eligible research activities include professional activities related to specific research projects, such as studio visits and site visits. A letter confirming a research-related meeting or studio visit with an artist, curator or arts organization is required.
Visual artists and fine craft artists are not eligible to apply for travel related to research, development or creation of visual arts project under this program. Applicants may include these costs in an application under other grants to professional artists programs offered by the Visual Arts Section.
Eligibility
General Eligibility Criteria
Applicants must be Canadian citizens or have permanent resident status, as defined by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Canadian citizens need not be living in Canada when they apply.
All applicants must meet the Canada Council for the Arts’ definition of a professional artist, defined as someone who has:
- completed his or her basic training (or the equivalent)
- produced an independent body of work
- received the recognition of his or her peers through public presentation of work in a professional context
- maintained an independent professional practice for at least three years.
Full-time undergraduate students at a school, college or university are not eligible to apply. Graduate students are eligible only if they meet the Canada Council’s definition of a professional artist, and the project for which they are applying is not related to their program of study. A letter from the applicant’s program director that verifies this information must be included with the application.
This Canada Council for the Arts program is accessible to Aboriginal artists and artists of diverse cultural and regional communities of Canada.
Eligible Professional Context
Artists’ public presentations and exhibitions, both in Canada and abroad, must be in a professional organization or context where the artists work is recognized by a professional curator, gallery owner/art dealer, or collective of professional artists.
In Canada, to be considered professional, an organization must be a public art gallery, a museum or an artist-run centre that pays a professional fee to participating artists. The condition of paying fees does not apply to commercial galleries or professional venues outside Canada.
The Canada Council for the Arts recognizes that, for contemporary visual artists from Aboriginal as well as culturally diverse communities and, in rare cases, artists living in remote areas, the networks for peer recognition and exhibition venues may exist in alternative professional contexts. The acceptance of alternative professional contexts will be determined with the expertise of Aboriginal and culturally diverse communities in the Visual Arts Section and, if necessary, in collaboration with peers in the milieu.
Important:
- You may apply to the Canada Council for only one travel grant as well as one grant to professional artists program (or to one deadline of that program) per fiscal year (from 1 April to 31 March).
- To be eligible, your date of travel must occur after the deadline date. The Canada Council does not provide retroactive funding.
Projects and Applicants Not Eligible for the Program
Travel for an activity hosted by an organization that already receives operating funding from the Canada Council for the Arts or from a department of the federal government (including Canadian embassies abroad) is not eligible for support under this program. This condition does not apply to research activities by independent critics or curators.
This program does not provide assistance for commercial, educational or commissioned works; capital expenses or basic equipment purchases; or promotional expenses (such as invitations or advertising). Please note that professional artists who work in industrial or commercial design are not eligible.
The following types of projects are not eligible for support and do not count in determining an applicant’s eligibility.
For All Art Forms:
- Commercial projects.
- Industrial projects.
- Student projects.
- Educational projects.
- Design or development of computer programs.
For Fine Craft Professionals:
- Manufacturing a line of production items.
For Practitioners, Critics and Curators of Architecture:
- Projects on the history of architecture before 1945.
For Independent Art Critics and Curators:
Grant Amount
Travel grants are available in fixed amounts ($500, $750, $1,000, $1,500, $2,000 or $2,500), depending on the extent of travel. Note that the amounts of $2,000 and $2,500 are available only to applicants who are travelling to or from northern Canada or to international destinations other than the United States and Europe.
Travel must be to a destination more than 500 kilometres outside the artist’s home region.
The grants contribute only toward the personal costs of travel and accommodation incurred by the artist, not to the transportation costs for artworks. Grants cover the costs of plane, train or bus fare and accommodation.
In the case of artists’ residencies, travel grants may be used only to cover the travel and accommodation costs incurred between the applicant’s home and the location of the residency. They are not intended to cover the per diem, accommodation and registration costs of the residency itself.
The value of the grant is based on the most economical means of travel between the applicant’s home and the venue of the proposed activity. More than one destination may be included in the same round trip (for example, from Vancouver to Montreal for one activity, and then to Toronto for another, and return). Applicants must justify the amount requested.
The Canada Council for the Arts will fund projects that are also funded by other public or private organizations, but not for the same expenses.
Application Form
Or
Further Information
Visual Arts Section Officer
Canada Council for the Arts
350 Albert Street, P.O. Box 1047
Ottawa ON K1P 5V8
Telephone: 1-800-263-5588 (toll-free) or 613-566-4414, extention indicated below or ext. 5913
- 1 June: Geneviève Landreville, ext. 5109
- 1 October: Melinda Mollineaux, ext. 4122
- 1 January: Sarah Gelbard, ext. 5270
- 1 March: Jim Logan, ext. 5266
TTY (TDD) machine, for hearing-impaired callers: 613-565-5194
Fax: 613-566-4332
April 2009