WriteON 2021: Call for applications
Applications are now Closed. We will be announcing the results Mid-April.
Amend
“Dandelions don’t know whether they are a weed or a brilliance.”
Ways of knowing start from vantage points. With shifts come the opportunity to witness and to repair. How can we amend, to begin to see, feel and listen to what has been previously overlooked, or maybe even forgotten?
The WriteON 2021 critical writing workshop series calls attention to the ethics and meaning of design. As we navigate isolating lockdowns, masking, and even mourning, what does it mean to care for others? What well-intended designs create protection for some but a lack of safety for others? What stories of occupation and conflict can be amended with new ways forward?
WriteON is an opportunity to take the time to articulate the meaningful across our urban environment. The workshop series is open to professional and aspiring writers: artists and architects, as well as those with backgrounds in film, digital media, design, theatre, public art, planning, urbanism, anthropology and geography are invited to explore a contemporary means of expressing visual form. It’s about words. And about explorative, provocative thinking.
In partnership with the Calgary Public Library and Esker Foundation, WriteON participants will be invited to apply for two paid summer residencies.
Residency and Publishing Opportunity for an Indigenous, Black or Person of Colour author, in partnership with Esker Foundation, to focus on a response to the summer/fall exhibition Relations: Diaspora and Painting curated by Cheryl Sim, organized by the Phi Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal.
Critic-in-Residence in partnership with Calgary Public Library to develop a civic response to an urban infrastructure challenge. Based in one of the library branches, the residency will be an opportunity to develop a community-based approach.
Attend four online writing sessions between April and June. Select essays developed over the course of the workshops will be published.
We wish to recognize the support of Calgary Arts Development in making the WriteON series possible.
Apply by April 4, 2021 (midnight MST)
K. Jake Chakasim
(April, online) K. Jake Chakasim is a Cree architect from the Mushkegowuk Territory (Northern Ontario) and a doctoral candidate at the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning. He was awarded the Architectural Research Consortium medal for innovation and scholarship in 2010.
Neena Verma
(May, online) Neena Verma is a practicing architect, teacher and writer based in New York City. Her work queries the limits of contemporary architectural discourse — culturally, geographically and temporally.
Mimi Zeiger
(May/June, online) Mimi Zeiger is a Los Angeles-based critic, editor, and curator. She was co-curator of the U.S. Pavilion for the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale and curator of Soft Schindler at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture.