City of Kelowna: Artist in Residence Program

The Artist in Residence Program is meant to broaden Kelowna’s experience with arts and culture and stimulate thoughtful conversations on local topics.

The City of Kelowna requests expressions of interest from artists to apply to be the City of Kelowna’s Resident Artist. This program would involve the artist:

• engaging with the community in the context of arts and culture;
• creating a temporary work(s) of art for the City;
• addressing, in some manner, the topic of the environment and/or climate change through community engagement and the work(s) of art.

For the purposes of this program, “the Artist” may be an individual artist or collective of artists working in interdisciplinary art, social practice art, digital or electronic art, installation, visual art(photography, film and video, painting, print-making, drawing, sculpture, crafting), performance arts (theatre, dance, etc.), music (creation, production, performance) or writing. The work(s) of art created and the community engagement may fall into any of these categories or multiple categories. The Artist will be expected to commit to an average of 20 hours a week for 10 weeks or a similar commitment.

Eligible Individuals:

To be eligible, the artist must:

• be legally entitled to live and work in Canada for the duration of the residency;
• be an individual emerging or professional artist or a group or collective of emerging or professional practicing artists, who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents;
• have their primary residence in the Regional District of the Central Okanagan for at least one (1) full year before applying and for the duration of the contract (Lake Country, Kelowna, West Kelowna and Peachland).

Depending on the nature of the community engagement activities, the selected artist may be required to provide a Criminal Record Check including a Vulnerable Sector Screening at the artist’s expense. The results of the check must be acceptable to the City of Kelowna at its sole discretion.

This program welcomes submissions from under-represented artists of all backgrounds including, but not limited to, Indigenous, Black and racialized persons; refugee, newcomer and immigrant persons, two-spirit, LGBTQ+ and gender non-binary persons, persons with Disabilities and those on low-incomes or living in poverty.

Successful artist(s) will be required to obtain a City of Kelowna Business License. The fee for this is an eligible expense within the program budget.

Expression of Interest Deadline: July 14, 2025